New Era for Disability Rights; Inside Higher Ed, 11/7/16

Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed; New Era for Disability Rights:

"Disability studies scholars and legal experts say lawsuits like Dudley’s against Miami represent a shift in activism, where high-profile cases help raise awareness about the challenges facing students in an increasingly digital world. More than two decades after the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 was signed into law, advocacy groups are pushing to clarify how it and other laws that prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities apply to technology that at the time seemed like science fiction but now has become reality. At the same time, those and other groups are pushing for new legislation, keeping one eye on the upcoming process to rewrite the Higher Education Act...

Jonathan S. Fansmith, who works in government relations for ACE [American Council on Education], said in an interview that the associations are looking for a middle ground with regulations that ensure core university functions -- registering for classes, paying tuition and so on -- are accessible to anyone but don’t stifle university research output.

“We want to do the right thing here,” Fansmith said. “We want to do it the right way. We want to have cognizance of a process that’s thoughtful, deliberate and can actually be achieved so you don’t get schools that say, ‘Look, this is going to be so costly, so burdensome.’”"