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A statement on online course content and accessibility

news.berkeley.edu

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Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#51

Post by maxerickson »

mavhc wrote: post #49
sandworm101 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of other areas where this same law has similar effects but is tolerated. One niche area is the provision of legal services to the deaf. The lawyer must not charge extra, despite the need to hire a translator. That means taking a case involving a deaf defendant/plaintiff might be unprofitable. But you have to do it all the same. We do such things, foot the bill, because the law is the law. The governm…

We don't do it because it's the morally correct thing to do? Or even to promote a society where such things happen, just in case we or our relatives become disabled?

It seems to overwhelmingly be the case that people make accommodations because it's law.

It's not a bad thing and accomplishes much of what you speak of, but the ADA is pretty clearly the mechanism behind it, not people seeking good feels.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#52

Post by Houshalter »

The biggest concern is not even that the lectures get taken down. It's that other universities see this and don't put their content up in the future. Many organizations are extremely risk averse when it comes to lawsuits, and our crazy legal system has trained them to be that way.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#53

Post by shanusmagnus »

jasode wrote: post #23
eqmvii wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you wrote is logical, but applicable to any instance of accommodation to those with impairments. The Americans with Disabilities Act and related actions/legislation/policies explicitly bind society to inefficient resource allocation. The actual letter from the Department of Justice (linked at the bottom of Berkeley's response) goes into more detail. The DoJ is not demanding current materials be removed, nor are…

>The Americans with Disabilities Act [...] explicitly bind society to inefficient resource allocation. Sure, that seems justifiable for commercial businesses but many find the ADA to be an ugly legal weapon for attacking free donations. The spiritual intentions of "free" should be exempted. If UC Berkeley used the viewing of those videos as a mandatory requirement to qualify for admissions into the school or required…

I came back to make a comment just like this, but you already did it better than I would have.

The metaphor I had in mind was restaurants that make too much food, and (sometimes; some restaurants) they donate it to foodshelves (when appropriate) or sometimes just to some homeless guys who happen to be nearby. The extra food is an externality of their real purpose as a business, which is to take money in exchange for feeding people. They could throw the food away, but instead they're doing something nice with it. Almost nobody would say they should throw the food away because the homeless guys who happen to be the recipients of their largesse are benefiting, while other, further-away homeless guys are not. Such an argument would be idiotic.

In just this way these videos and course materials are an externality of the 'real' business of Berkeley, which is educating the people who are admitted to Berkeley and enrolled in the classes. Berkeley, and others like them, are going above and beyond to be nice to the rest of humanity, to our great collective benefit. This ADA thing is just a kick in the face, and it pisses me off.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#54

Post by Houshalter »

mavhc wrote: post #49
sandworm101 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of other areas where this same law has similar effects but is tolerated. One niche area is the provision of legal services to the deaf. The lawyer must not charge extra, despite the need to hire a translator. That means taking a case involving a deaf defendant/plaintiff might be unprofitable. But you have to do it all the same. We do such things, foot the bill, because the law is the law. The governm…

We don't do it because it's the morally correct thing to do? Or even to promote a society where such things happen, just in case we or our relatives become disabled?

How is it morally correct? It's not the lawyer's fault you are deaf. Why not make everyone equally pay taxes to subsidize the cost of the disabled? Putting the cost on the people that serve the disabled isn't really fair, and creates bad incentives, as seen by this very post.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#56

Post by Houshalter »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #12

Are any of these courses paid? Do any of these courses or the means through which they are made available advertise paid options, paid alternatives, or other paid courses? If both of those are 'no' then this is disgraceful. If either is 'yes' then it is completely justified.

Even if they made advertising money on it, it may not have been very much.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#57

Post by Houshalter »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #21
thaumasiotes wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow. Talk about harming hundreds of people for no reason at all. To be fair, the whole point of the ADA is to harm millions of people for the benefit of very few people.

About five years ago I was on crutches for several months and I can highly recommend the experience to anybody who is against the ADA as an eye-opener.

You can be against ADA without being against disability access entirely. The main complaints are that it's enforced through lawsuits which bankrupt small businesses. Often over trivial issues, like their mirror being 1 inch too high, or the parking sign not having the correct sticker on it, etc. That's a very different thing than not having a wheelchair ramp.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#58

Post by sandworm101 »

mavhc wrote: post #49
sandworm101 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of other areas where this same law has similar effects but is tolerated. One niche area is the provision of legal services to the deaf. The lawyer must not charge extra, despite the need to hire a translator. That means taking a case involving a deaf defendant/plaintiff might be unprofitable. But you have to do it all the same. We do such things, foot the bill, because the law is the law. The governm…

We don't do it because it's the morally correct thing to do? Or even to promote a society where such things happen, just in case we or our relatives become disabled?

A business does it because it is the law. A person may do or not do something based on personal choice, but in this situation there is no room. Businesses must meet the minimum standard of behavior. In this case the government has issued a warning that this particular business seems not to have met the bar.

If you are trying to pitch something, something that is going to cost a business money, "the right thing" isn't the place to start. "It's the law" is the far easier pitch.

An ADA story: New startup has a funky cool HQ setup in some loft space. Their new HR/PR head, herself right out of university, advertises a communications position. Everyone reads resumes and eight candidates are selected for interview. They could have gone with Skype, but the founder wanted to see the candidates in person, to get a feel for whether they have the "cultural fit". Seven show up. They pick someone and move on. All seems well in startup land. A few months later the lawsuit appears. It turns out that #8 uses a wheelchair ... a wheelchair that required an elevator ... which their hip new HQ did not have and their hip new HR head didn't have the experience to anticipate. Now they are meeting with a not-hip lawyer at definitely not-cool law firm, but one with an elevator because every lawyer knows about the ADA.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#59

Post by Normal_gaussian »

Houshalter wrote: post #56
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #12

Are any of these courses paid? Do any of these courses or the means through which they are made available advertise paid options, paid alternatives, or other paid courses? If both of those are 'no' then this is disgraceful. If either is 'yes' then it is completely justified.

Even if they made advertising money on it, it may not have been very much.

When providing a paid for service you have significantly different obligations to if the service is charitable.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#60

Post by Houshalter »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #59
Houshalter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they made advertising money on it, it may not have been very much.

When providing a paid for service you have significantly different obligations to if the service is charitable.

It is charitable. It's provided freely by a nonprofit organization.
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