
Harvard and M.I.T. Are Sued Over Lack of Closed Captions - lsh123
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/education/harvard-and-mit-sued-over-failing-to-caption-online-courses.html
======
jasode
If this causes a chilling effect such that universities find it easier or less
costly to withhold the free lectures, it means the _net effect on society_
from ADA lawsuits [about the free learning videos] is harmful.

Similar discussion as previous thread on UC Berkley:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761)

If the universities avoid releasing free videos, that punishes _all of us_
including the majority of people who don't have disabilities. I'd prefer to
find another way to caption these videos besides throwing around lawsuits.

If a Federal appeals court rules that Netflix doesn't have to caption their
commercial videos[1], surely we can cut some slack for _free education_
videos.

[1][http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-
rules...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-rules-
netflix-isnt-subject-to-disability-law/)

~~~
falcolas
If you believe the ADA is a net negative, it's good thing that you have no
opportunity to ever become disabled then.

> the majority of people who don't have disabilities

Almost 19% of the US' population is disabled in one way or another. That's a
lot of folks to discriminate against. But you're right, they're the minority,
so what rights should they have to get access to publicly available services?
Rip out those ramps, get rid of the parking spaces, close up the isles, and
shut down those elevators.

> Netflix doesn't have to caption

Netflix won that appeal, and lost the next. Rather than take it further, they
made a deal and added closed captioning. So, yes, if you offer public content,
it should be available for everybody. Cost of doing business.

While this content may be nominally free, it's an advertisement for MIT and
Harvard classes. As much money as these universities spend on their regular
marketing materials, they can afford a few TAs to add captions to their video
courses.

~~~
roblabla
Unfortunately, I have to agree with GP here. Even if they're ads for MIT and
Harvard, they're "good ads". We absolutely don't want to disincentivize them.
Forcing these kind of regulations against them is a disservice to society, as
it puts more knowledge away.

It'd be great if they were closed captioned, true. But it's already "good
enough" that they're public. Giving them even a moment's doubt about the value
of putting their knowledge in the public is a bad idea.

~~~
falcolas
> a disservice to society

A disservice to society is treating some people who, through no fault of their
own, as worth less than everyone else.

> Giving them even a moment's doubt about the value of putting their knowledge
> in the public is a bad idea.

So you'll allow them to hold their data hostage to get special favors and
exceptions from federal law? Where do you draw the line then?

They already provide wheelchair ramps, braille (and low vision) compatible
signs, ARIA tags on their websites, door openers, all for free for anybody who
comes to their campus; what makes their videos exempt?

That they have gotten away this long is them not paying attention to the laws;
these lawsuits are simply an attempt to get them to follow the laws in the
country they live and work in.

~~~
xenobioticants
So you'd rather have it be that no one has access to these free educational
lectures/videos than that a small minority (<20%) can't use them? That's
pretty much the perfect example of cutting of your nose to spite your face.

If these laws go through, Harvard and MIT should just set up a small
subsidiary in another country and upload the videos through those. Problem
solved.

~~~
falcolas
The laws already exist, and Harvard et.al. have been operating under them for
years. If they followed those laws and subtitled the videos, the problem would
also be solved.

~~~
candiodari
But why should the extra expense be forced upon them ? As has been announced,
this will result in the videos being taken offline, not in anything that helps
the disabled.

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/20/berkeley-
may-...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/20/berkeley-may-remove-
free-online-content-rather-complying-disability-law)

So rather than helping anyone, you're sabotaging many.

I would like to point out though that merely uploading a video to YouTube
results in it being captioned, for free, by a machine learning algorithm.

------
miranda_rights
So if I understand correctly, this has nothing to do with the students
attending these schools and instead concerns the course materials made free to
the public.

I don't know -- I understand that it must not be helpful for deaf students,
but it seems like it would be cheaper for the schools to just stop sharing the
courses instead of dealing with a lawsuit. What does the NAD expect to have
happen?

~~~
jordonwii
> it seems like it would be cheaper for the schools to just stop sharing the
> courses instead of dealing with a lawsuit.

Indeed. That's exactly what happened at UC Berkeley, once news of these
lawsuits got out. We used to have all of our class lectures available free to
the public, but now they're restricted only to students.

~~~
endswapper
I see that as an embarrassing result for UC Berkeley and any institution that
follows suit. Clearly, there is value to making the material available,
otherwise it would not have been posted in the first place. Discriminating
against a few or against everyone because of a negligible cost is a failure.

Furthermore, the fact that these considerations are not at the forefront of
people's minds when releasing materials reinforces the merits of the lawsuit
and the law.

~~~
rhaps0dy
> Discriminating against a few or against everyone because of a negligible
> cost is a failure.

It's not a negligible cost to transcribe every single phrase the lecturer
utters, for hours and hours and hours of lessons.

Would it be better if the captions were generated by Youtube? Come on, that
system is not good enough yet.

~~~
cooper12
They could set up a crowdsourced model for it. I don't know if they host their
videos on Youtube, but it offers that option and there are services they could
utilize if not such as Amara [0] which is used by Udacity and Khan Academy.

[0]: [https://pro.amara.org/education](https://pro.amara.org/education)

------
SilasX
Even given the importance of disability accomodation, this provision doesn't
make sense. Why apply it to a non-profit making giveaway that's mostly an
artifact of something they wanted to do (compliantly) anyway?

That's like saying that if a store donates usable meat, they have to give a
vegetarian option.

All it accomplishes is to punish those who go through the effort to make sure
that byproducts of their mission can reach more people, and make it harder to
"recycle" such products.

Think about it this way: it's already legal for me to make blind-incompatible
blog posts and videos and give them away for free. This law is saying "hey
prestigious institution, it's okay to give away your course materials for
free, but you better durn well funnel it through a no-name blogger so no one
knows where to find it!"

~~~
falcolas
Oh, absolutely! You know how else they can save money? By stopping offering
wheelchair accessible ramps. I bet they could save a few bucks by not using
signs which also offer braile. And who needs elevators? Not their able-bodied
students, obviously.

/s

------
mwnivek
This article is from Feb. 12, 2015

Original discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798)

------
ausjke
This is indeed ridiculous. I saw this came up at HN before. Again, I'm beyond
words.

You don't sue a guy doing good deeds just because he is not 100% good to all,
or missed someone in his efforts. Gosh.

~~~
ahelwer
That's a reasonable belief, which is why the ADA does not require compliance
by individuals. However, these are not individuals; they are large
institutions with the means to provide transcription. Can you formulate an
argument for why online courses published by large institutions should be
exempt from accessibility requirements which does not extend to an attack on
accessibility requirements everywhere?

~~~
bobwaycott
Can you formulate an argument for why course material collected, published,
and shared for free--with no tie to actual courses that provide graduating
credit--by large institutions should be subjected to accessibility
requirements which does not extend to an attack on freely sharing information
everywhere?

EDIT: For online course material that is offered to enrolled students and
required for the completion of a degree, I do not believe anyone is arguing in
opposition.

~~~
ahelwer
Excellent question! I like playing the role of gadfly, but will now try to
construct my own argument for demolition to the enjoyment of others.

First, let's examine the virtue of accessibility. We start with the
observation that nearly 1 in 5 Americans are disabled[0]. The source provides
a breakdown by disability type. 1 in 5 is a high enough ratio to appeal to
purely selfish reasons for the virtue of accessibility: there is quite a good
chance you yourself will become disabled and require accommodation, so you
should advocate for accessibility while you are still fortunate enough to be
healthy. Other reasons to support accessibility include improved economic
output by including the disabled in the workforce, ensuring a path to success
for exceptional disabled people, increased quality of life among the disabled
populace (about which you may or may not care), and an appeal to the abstract
ideal of equality.

Now that we have established the virtue of accessibility, let's consider the
virtue of enshrining accessibility requirements in law with penalty for non-
compliance. Clearly, not all services desired by the disabled will implement
accessibility (an example is the topic of this thread). Of those services
which do not voluntarily implement accessibility, does the government have any
interest in compelling implementation? Your answer to this question will
depend on your own beliefs about the role of government; to head off an
enormous digression, we'll just assume that yes, the government does have such
an interest.

If the government has an interest in compelling implementation of
accessibility, to what services does this interest extend? Certainly not all;
it would be absurd to require every favor or interaction between individuals
maintain full access compliance. For our purposes here let's use a
classification function unlikely to be controversial (and more restrictive
than is practiced): services provided by the government, and services provided
by institutions receiving money from the government.

Both MIT ($460m in 2015[1]) and Harvard ($656m in 2012[2]) receive funding
from the federal government. Thus they satisfy our restrictive classification,
and so services offered should implement accessibility measures subject to
penalty. These free online courses are services offered by MIT and Harvard.
Thus they should implement accessibility measures. They certainly have the
means.

[0]
[https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellane...](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html)

[1]
[http://web.mit.edu/ir/financial/re.html](http://web.mit.edu/ir/financial/re.html)

[2]
[http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-r...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-
research-budget-cuts/)

~~~
bobwaycott
In an effort to both help and ensure I am responding to the strongest form of
an argument, and not just picking apart easy weaknesses, would you care to
bolster your claims that:

\- freely publishing course materials to the internet-at-large is the same
thing as providing educational services for which the universities receive
federal funding

\- services provided by institutions receiving money from the government
includes all services provided--pending your clarification on how releasing
information equates to a service provided--entirely, without exemption, and
not just those services to which federal funds are directly allocated

\- applying federal compulsion to meet desired accessibility goals should
apply to individuals who are not the official recipients of the benefits of
the programs funded by the federal government (in this instance, meaning the
general public of internet users who are non-students desiring to consume
freely available information)

I find this automatic set of claims/assumptions to be highly dubious, as it
equates releasing information--even if organized by originating course, thus
giving the appearance of being an "online course", but actually lacking any
involvement or service from the university beyond releasing the material, and
thus not really an "online course"\--to providing education to enrolled
students (for which the university receives funding and is inarguably subject
to accessibility restrictions with associated penalties). I think these are,
if one does not ignore the nuances of the circumstances, quite different
things that weaken the argument for considering them to be services provided
by the university. How do you enshrine this in a principle that applies to all
actors? Does everything a university sponsors or engages in fall under these
principles? Meaning, because they received federal funding for programs A, B,
and C, do programs X, Y, and Z fall under federal purview and penalty, as
well? Should the internet public really be granted the latitude to expect they
can have their cake and eat it, too, where consuming course material for
personal edification as a non-student is concerned?

You can check my much lengthier thoughts elsewhere in the thread on this, if
you'd like. Also, let's exclude your "They certainly have the means" comment.
That, to me, diminishes the force of your argument for principles by
concluding it as an argument that the alleged principles only matter because
the affected party has the perceived means. I think that severely weakens the
case for why this isn't just a grab to hold an entity to a higher standard
because they have the money to pay for the burden.

~~~
ahelwer
All good areas of inquiry. You call for a stronger chain of reasoning
connecting the free online courses to federal funding. I'll start by setting
myself back a bit: I don't think Harvard and MIT receive federal funding
earmarked for educational services, only research. We can toss in a caveat
characterizing federal student loans as funding, but it doesn't change the
central issue: no federal funds are explicitly earmarked for free online
courses. All that said, it isn't obvious why this should be an issue; the
above classification function is significantly weaker than that used in real
life, and federal funding binding an entire organization avoids the hairy
problems that come with tracking what money goes where in fungible currency.
Organizations know the strings attached to federal dollars before choosing to
accept them. So yes, receiving federal funding for programs A, B, and C
require programs X, Y, and Z to fall under federal purview and penalty.

You raise a possible distinction between free online courses, which you reduce
to releasing information, and services. This might be delving into semantic
argument territory. I would say the onus is on you here to argue why free
online courses should not be considered a service offered by the university
and thus possibly not subject to accessibility requirements.

~~~
bobwaycott
I'll accept the onus and point you toward my tackling that matter in some
depth in another comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720879)

Edit: Please forgive posting a link to another comment. I'm pointing to the
other comment only because I feel it is quite thorough, and am not sure the
conversation is helped by duplicating the same sentiments, thoughts, and
questions.

Edit 2: I hope my consideration of the issues and perspectives can pass the
smell test of invoking a semantic argument. I genuinely find this particular
issue to be one that is nuanced and important, and do not wish to subvert
reasoned consideration by quibbling too much over words. Suffice to say, I
think this is far more a matter of situational and conceptual difference, not
just whether we should rightly use a word to indicate a thing.

~~~
ahelwer
Well, I was being a bit unfair. Semantic arguments aren't useless per se when
value is derived from satisfying a definition or not (as might be the case
here). I will take a look at your linked comment.

------
microtherion
A few thoughts, somewhat orthogonal to each other:

1) Disability rights are often portrayed as a special privilege for a subgroup
of society. But in reality, __all __of us start our lives mobility impaired
and illiterate, and many of us who are lucky enough to grow old become sight,
hearing, and mobility impaired to some extent. Accessibility helps all of us.

2) Accessibility helps not just humans. High quality captions add a lot of
value to videos, because they make the videos _searchable_ , which provides
immense benefits to __all __users, hearing impaired or not.

3) Disability rights are the one aspect of social policies where the USA might
be ahead of much of the rest of the world. Compared to my native Switzerland,
the USA is far ahead in empowering disabled individuals to participate in
public life. This is something the US should be proud of.

------
plandis
It's kind of tongue-in-cheek but NAD is ruining this great resource for he
rest of us.

Thinking about what's easier if the choice is take down all material and not
spend money on a lawsuit or spend even more money to add captions there is an
obvious choice for universities to make :-/

~~~
imglorp
What is Youtube going to do when it's their turn? Netflix already got sued.
With 300-400 hours of user content uploaded _per minute_, Youtube would need
to employ a small country to provide human subtitling at that rate. The
automated subtitles have a ways to go still.

Do they get a pass because it's not their content? Do they get a pass because
it's almost impossible to provide? Or do they suck it up and CC everything at
great expense to everyone?

~~~
jacalata
YouTube does not use federal funding to produce content.

~~~
imglorp
Then, on what grounds was Netflix sued?

~~~
jacalata
Losing grounds. Which is one reason YouTube would not be worried by a similar
lawsuit.

------
Eridrus
Initially I was quite confused about why the ADA/Rehabilitation Act applied to
Harvard/MIT. It seemed like it was largely about employers and federal
agencies, but at least the Rehabilitation Act covers "any program or activity
receiving Federal financial assistance", so I'm guessing that's why it applied
to edX, though I wonder if it would apply if edX was an entirely separate
entity that licensed the content from Harvard/MIT, or if they would still have
an obligation to provide captions when licensing their content.

~~~
DanBC
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990#Title_III.E2.80.94public_accommodations_.28and_commercial_facilities.29)

> Under Title III, no individual may be discriminated against on the basis of
> disability with regards to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods,
> services, facilities, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation
> by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation.
> Public accommodations include most places of lodging (such as inns and
> hotels), recreation, transportation, education, and dining, along with
> stores, care providers, and places of public displays.

[...]

> The statutory definition of "readily achievable" calls for a balancing test
> between the cost of the proposed "fix" and the wherewithal of the business
> and/or owners of the business. Thus, what might be "readily achievable" for
> a sophisticated and financially capable corporation might not be readily
> achievable for a small or local business.

It's a 25 year old law. I don't have much sympathy for large organisations
that are still choosing to discriminate against disabled people.

~~~
bobwaycott
How exactly are they perpetrating an unjust or prejudicial treatment of the
differently abled on the basis of them being differently abled?

~~~
DanBC
They have chosen to not make the material accessible to deaf people, even
though laws around closed captioning equipment started coming in 25 years ago
(more recent changes include Internet streaming), and even though the ADA is
25 years old. There's no excuse to not know about it. They knew about it
(because they provide reasonable adjustments to very many students all the
time, and they have departments to do so), but they chose to ignore it.

It is clearly, unambiguously, discrimination. It might be legal (for the
reasons I quoted around practicability), but that legality does not stop it
being discriminatory.

~~~
davidivadavid
It seems like what you're saying in your first paragraph supports the idea
that what they're doing is wrong because it's _illegal._

But then you do a 180 and say it's wrong because it's _immoral._

Obviously, it could be both, but even if the first argument is kind of a "duh"
it seems more cogent than going back and forth between those two positions (as
many people seem to do in the thread).

~~~
DanBC
I'm not good at communicating.

Society decided it was immoral to discriminate against people with
disabilities. We tried asking nicely, and got ignored, and so we passed laws
to drive change. Those laws were made some time ago, and while it takes time
for change to happen we've had long enough for people to bring things into
compliance with those laws.

This is especially true for large well funded organisations producing new
material. There's not much excuse for a large well funded organisation, who is
well aware of reasonable adjustments, to not make new material accessible.

Arguments against making material accessible are "it's too hard" or "it's too
expensive". That's covered by the law (I included reference to it in my post).

But the fact that we still don't have useful speech-to-text or good
transcription shows the contempt much of the tech industry has for people with
disabilities. See also the choice to exclude people by choosing pale grey text
on a bright white background. (Note that this doesn't just exclude people with
disability levels of eyesight loss, but also people with mild visual loss).

------
endswapper
"The DOJ counters that the disability discrimination laws have clear
jurisdiction over video on the internet, and that closed captions are required
to make videos accessible to deaf or hard of hearing students.[0]"

"Harvard and MIT both requested a Motion to Stay or Dismiss the cases on the
grounds that current accessibility law doesn’t explicitly require universities
to caption video on the web.

In June, the US Department of Justice weighed in on the issue in a statement
of interest to the court. The USDOJ argued in favor of the NAD and urged the
judge to deny the Motion to Stay of Dismiss. Judge Robertson agreed.

That means that, barring an objection from the District Judge, the lawsuit
will proceed without delay.[1]"

[0] [http://www.3playmedia.com/2015/06/26/usdoj-sides-with-nad-
in...](http://www.3playmedia.com/2015/06/26/usdoj-sides-with-nad-in-web-
accessibility-lawsuit-against-harvard-mit/) [1]
[http://www.3playmedia.com/2016/02/23/judge-denies-motion-
to-...](http://www.3playmedia.com/2016/02/23/judge-denies-motion-to-dismiss-
web-accessibility-lawsuit-against-harvard-mit/)

------
Mathnerd314
This could set a new precedent if the decision extends beyond videos.

Sample scenarios:

\- Color red is banned because colorblind people can't see it

\- "screeching nails on blackboard" Youtube video is pulled because deaf
people can't enjoy it

\- Public datasets are pulled because the numbers are too complicated for
ordinary people to understand

IMO there should be a general divide between "public data" and "public
accommodation". Data is just bits; 0's and 1's can be communicated to anyone.
Requiring them to be something else as well is going too far. To put it
another way: the accessibility problem is in the human-computer interface, not
in the service on the other end of the network.

And here's Harvard's brief agreeing with me, categorizing the videos as
"goods" rather than "services":
[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=235493653&...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=235493653&z=fc4c531a)

That being said, it seems like the NAD only expects this to apply to public
accommodations, so perhaps all that's needed is to move (donate) the videos to
a separate (non-public-accommodation) location, e.g. Bittorrent.

------
toehead2000
Without the closed captions, how are the deaf going to find knowledge in
written form??

~~~
aab0
Everywhere else on the Internet?

------
cooper12
I'm really surprised to see this anti-accesibility sentiment on HN, where you
see comments about contrast/scroll hijacking/Javascript requirability and
numerous other things the WCAG recommends against on nearly every link posted.
You'd expect Harvard and M.I.T. to have wheelchair ramps so disabled students
could get to class right? It shouldn't be so controversial that their lectures
should be accessible as well. Maybe some are concerned over the possible costs
but there are solutions to that such as crowdsourcing. Universities are meant
to spread knowledge for all and even if they're a public good, they should
still be held accountable for it.

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
It's not an anti-accessibility sentiment, it's anger that the only reasonable
thing for these organizations to do is stop giving it away for free.

It's like if an organization is giving away food and then gets sued for not
providing a gluten or nut-free option.

Its the sentiment that if _some_ people can't have it, no one should.

~~~
microtherion
> the only reasonable thing for these organizations to do is stop giving it
> away for free

Yeah, it's not like MIT and Harvard have spare money lying around to spend on
captioning (apart from the $13.5B and $37.5B, respectively, in their
endowments). Let Big Deaf use their deep pockets to pay for captioning, if
that's what they want!

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
That's such an absurd argument. "They have so much money, so let's MAKE them
spend it on ME." MIT and Harvard had nothing to gain from releasing their
lectures online for free, and plenty to lose by continuing to do so. When you
stare a gift horse in the mouth, expect to be kicked in the face.

------
zebraflask
The lawyers just want the ADA fees from institutions with deep pockets. It's
not about these universities deliberately refusing to accommodate the hearing
impaired. I think they would, if a serious student needed that assistance.

------
throwow34393
This absolutely crazy.

~~~
awqrre
It stinks but you probably would not think so if you absolutely needed the
closed caption.

~~~
rhaps0dy
There's no reason to deny other people of the free lessons, other than green
envy.

You can get the material anyways from the recommended course books, which are
probably available in the public library at request. Or the course notes in
the course's web page.

~~~
awqrre
It almost always incurs a cost to provide convenience to the handicaps which
is why laws have been created so that they are threated equally... For
example, do you really need to be able to access this store with your wheel
chair? probably not, you could use Amazon.

------
calimac
this is a joke and Like the ADA in many ways will oppress further exposure of
free education due to increasing the cost. This is absurd.

~~~
maxxxxx
I used to be skeptical of the ADA but on a recent trip to France my girlfriend
broke her foot and I had to push here around in a wheelchair. I realized how
difficult life can be for disabled people when elevators are not working or a
curb doesn't have a ramp. These are all very simple things and don't cost that
much in comparison to other features of the building.

Since then I am a strong supporter of the ADA.

