This lesson will give you a brief introduction to some of the major laws that govern accessibility in the United States. There's a fascinating history here that stretches back to 1920, with the Vocational Rehabilitation Act and efforts to provide rehabilitation services to people with disabilities, mainly veterans returning from the first World War. By the 1960's, the perception of disability began to shift away from rehabilitation to more of a Civil Rights perspective. While primarily focusing on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, the 1964 Civil Rights Movement helped change the way we think about disability and had a significant impact on disability legislation that followed, most notably the Americans with Disabilities Act, or, the ADA. Elsewhere in this module, the video spotlight "Timothy Nugent: The Game Changer," provides a fascinating historical window into the struggle for the rights of persons with disabilities through the history, leading up to and through the Civil Rights Era. Finally, from the global perspective, we'll list some of the international laws and standards for accessibility on the readings and resources page in this module and, as part of the instructional activities in this module, we'll invite you to broaden the scope in the discussion forum and tell us about the relevant laws in your country or in your state, if you're from the United States. Let's start with section 504. Section 504 is part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This Act expanded the scope of the 1920 Vocational Rehabilitation Act beyond the workforce and jobs to focus more broadly on the Civil Rights of persons with disabilities. In the process, the term "vocational" was dropped and the revised act is now known as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, or, more informally, the Rehab Act. Section 504 is a small, but very important news section in the Rehab Act, which states that: In short, all programs receiving federal funds may not discriminate against people with disabilities based on their disability. This includes all government agencies, federally funded projects, K-12 schools, and post-secondary entities like state colleges, universities, and vocational training schools. It's also worth mentioning here that, in the same year as the 1973 Rehab Act, the Access Board was formed to ensure that buildings, facilities and transit vehicles are accessible to people with disabilities. This board is also known as "the Federal Board" or "the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board". Now let's talk about the ADA or the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George Herbert Walker Bush. Modelled after the Civil Rights Act of 1974, the ADA is, essentially, an equal opportunity law for people with disabilities. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment in the private and public sectors, in state and local government activities such as healthcare, public education and voting, in public accommodations and services operated by private entities such as restaurants, retail stores, hotels and private schools, in transportation services and in telecommunications such as telephone and television services. To be protected under the ADA, one must have a disability which is defined by the ADA as: Although the ADA does not specifically name all of the disabilities covered, common examples include: In 2008, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act expanded the definition of what constitutes a disability. As part of this process, Congress also overturned several Supreme Court decisions believed to have been interpreted the definition of disability to narrowly, resulting in the denial of protection for people with impairments such as epilepsy, cancer, muscular dystrophy, and multiple sclerosis. Overall, the broader definition of disability in the 2008 ADA Amendment made it easier for people with disabilities to receive protection under the ADA. One reason the ADA was such an important legal milestone was because it moved beyond governing direct or indirect recipients of Federal Funds to include private entities. This broader coverage of the ADA applied to everything from hiring practices to physical structures like buildings, signs and sidewalks, to transportation services and to tele-communication services like telephone and television. What was missing, however, was electronic information technology, like the internet, and the World Wide Web. This omission is understandable if we consider that the first web browser wasn't made available to the public until 1991, a year after the ADA was passed. In short, the vast information and commercial network of the World Wide Web was yet to be born. Several years later, in 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. This amendment is known as section 508, and applies to all federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic information technology. Part of the amendment also required the Access Board to define federal criteria for accessible electronic information technology, a task they accomplished two years later in 2000 when the Board introduced the first set of Federal Accessibility Standards for electronic information technology. Section 508 was the first significant piece of legislation to define a set of basic accessibility standards for federal electronic information technology. It includes 16 basic standards for web-based internet information and applications ranging from text equivalents for graphics and non-text elements, to basic HTML mark-up guidelines, as well as captioning for multi-media and electronic format guidelines. Although the was a good start, technologies and software changed rapidly, and it wasn't very long before the original section 508 standards were outdated and in need of revision. After an Access Board Advisory Committee Review in 2008, multiple drafts in 2010, 2011, and 2015, and 7 public hearings with over 630 comments, in January of 2018, an updated version of section 508, commonly referred to as the "508 Refresh," finally became law. In response to the growing multifunctional capabilities of technology like smartphones and the development of the internet as a place of commerce, the refresh restructured its standards around functionality rather than product type. This change is also evident in the Refresh's integration of WCAG 2.0 standards that are more principle based, more easily applied to any web-based technology, non-web documents or software. In keeping with the globally recognized standards like WCAG 2.0, the Refresh is also designed to harmonize with the European Commission Standards for Information Communication Technology or ICT. In the area of hardware and software, the Refresh also requires that operating systems provide specific accessibility features, and that they, uh, interoperate with assistive technology like screen magnification software and refreshable brail displays. And finally, one very important addition to the Refresh is its recognition of the accessibility needs for people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities. Like section 508, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, also known as the CVAA, was a response to the growth of information and communication technology, specifically newer communications technology like voice-over IP, streaming video, video chat, and electronic messaging. Unlike the ADA, which is primarily a Civil Rights Law, the CVAA is specifically a tele-communications law that expands prior laws like the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Enforced by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, the CVAA requires closed-captioning for broadcast and cable television and provides audio description requirements as well as accessible interface requirements for communication and video applications and devices. Some states, like Illinois, have their own set of accessibility requirements and guidelines that apply to state entities. The Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act, or IITAA, requires Illinois Agencies and Universities to ensure that their websites, information systems, and information technologies are accessible to the people with disabilities. As of August 20th, 2008, IITAA standards apply to all state of Illinois entities including public universities. It does not apply to local governments, school districts, community colleges or private organizations. And the IITAA does not require the state to make previous existing systems accessible unless those systems were substantially modified after the 2008 compliance. Nearly 10 years later, in January of 2018, the updated IITAA 2.0 standards went into effect. Aligning with the refreshed section 508 and WCAG 2.0 standards, and harmonizing with international standards, IITAA standards provide a set of functional accessibility performance criteria for a wide range of technologies including software applications and operating systems, web-based information and applications, tele-communications products, and video and multi-media products. As you look back over this very brief introduction to some of the major laws that govern accessibility in the United States, we hope you can start to see some of the major legal contours and, perhaps, even a rough historical trajectory beginning with the vocational rehabilitation efforts in the 1920's after the first World War, up through the Civil Rights Era and into the electronic information and communication technology in the '90s and beyond. A reminder that, elsewhere in this module, the video spotlight "Timothy Nugent: The Game Changer" offers another historical window into the struggle for the rights of persons with disabilities through the history leading up to, and through, the Civil Rights Era. Finally, from the global perspective, you'll find some of the international laws and standards for accessibility listed on the readings and resources page in this module. And, this week, we'll also invite you to broaden the scope of the legal landscape in the discussion forum by telling us about major accessibility laws in your country or in your state, if you're from the U.S.
