Government regulation strikes again.
there is a clause in there about undue hardship, if the cost would be excessive, they wouldn't have to do it. also, if i'm understanding the news article correctly, it was just the the DOJ, which doesn't make rulings, as they aren't a court, they're the executive branch, they just enforce laws as defined by the courts.
A bit more context:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/...-and-podcasts/The campus will focus on creating new public content in its ongoing effort to improve accessibility of its online content, Koshland said in a March 1 “Campus message on Course Capture video, podcast changes” published by the university’s public affairs office this week.
“Legacy” content, such as “Course Capture” classroom lecture videos and podcasts, which are three to 10 years old and see limited use, will be available only to members of the campus community, Koshland said. Access will be through an authentication process, which also “allows us to better protect instructor intellectual property from ‘pirates’ who have reused content for personal profit without consent,” she added. The campus’ public legacy libraries on YouTube and iTunesU include more than 20,000 publications, she said.
So it's only the older videos, which don't meet the quality standards and apparently see "limited use". And students can still see them.
You could argue that's still not ideal, but the blog in the OP is spinning this a bit.
- - - Updated - - -
Harm would have to be scaled against how many people use these older videos though.
Its human nature to ruin people's fun.Okay, I can see someone feeling bad that their disability doesn't let them partake in the fun, but do they have to ruin it for everyone else?
/absorbed back into the Light.
Here is the harm, now the videos are no longer free to the general public. No matter how you want to coach it, the little whiner did far more harm than good because he is no better off and the VAST majority of people who had no issues with the videos are now without access. The ADA went WAY to far and does more harm than good (and for what its worth, I am considered disabled).
Given the nature of the videos, they were not deliberately discriminated against. There was simply no extraordinary measure taken to ensure that everyone could access and benefit from the videos.
Regardless, the end result is that the deaf students realized they couldn't benefit, so instead of taking any of the other available paths, decided to do what they could to ensure nobody else could benefit either.
Undue Hardships don't apply to universities that raking in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Undue hardships are for individuals or very small companies who can't actually afford the cost of compliance. Berkley can afford it, they just don't want to. And the DoJ is exactly the entity within the government who would enforce compliance. They informed Berkeley they were in violation of the law and they informed the school they would face prosecution if they didn't comply with the law, which is what the DoJ is supposed to do. If and only if Berkley didn't comply would the DoJ take them to court.
You really need to go learn how the law works. The Department of Justice is the specific department in the federal government that enforces federal laws. Even if it's something like an environmental law, it's the DoJ that prosecutes people. All US Attorneys work for the DoJ, every single member of federal law enforcement, such as the FBI, works for the DoJ.
Last edited by Slicer299; 2017-03-08 at 06:28 AM.
Im waiting for blind people to shut down free text lesson now!
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/...-and-podcasts/
I'll post this in case anyone is interested in more details.
They didn't take the content down over closed captioning.
Computers do that now and it's probably not very expensive.
The other available paths cause undue hardship in comparison to the videos. Why should everyone else get an advantage at the expense of deaf people? The fact that these videos exist to the public freely causes damage to deaf people. Being deaf is a disability too and we should be inclusive with people with disabilities. They are people too.
How much of an entitled cunt do you have to be to file an actual complaint to the DOJ?