Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses • Hacker News Board

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#261

Post by sp332 » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

jes wrote: post #225

balls187 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Should we in fact tell them "it is illegal for you to put out this material to benefit much of humanity, without also expending additional effort to benefit the deaf part of humanity?" Yes. To prevent this exact line of thinking, laws exist. Not just to protect the majority, but to protect EVERYONE as equals, under the rule of law.

I think your comment is thoughtful and well-intentioned, but I find myself wondering about the seemingly egalitarian nature of it. May I ask if are you saying that if I wanted to feed poor people, you would want to see me thwarted, unless I could feed every poor person? In other words, if an organization only has the resources to do a little bit of good in the world, unless they can treat everyone as equals, they sho…

If you can only do a little bit of good, you should do it for the underprivileged position and not for people who are already privileged.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#262

Post by sp332 » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 2:59 PM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #220

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The effort of putting closed captions on your informal video would be much too great. $1 per minute (if you farm it out) or even less if you do it yourself. In exchange you get 7-15% more views - is that really an unbearable deal?

For a whole lot of people, I think it's safe to say that the answer is yes: the deal is unbearable. I personally would not bother putting videos online if I had to go through some closed captioning hassle, and I doubt I'm particularly special here. You can argue that people ought to be okay with the extra effort of closed captioning, but don't mistake that for an argument that they will be.

How do you defend that attitude to all the deaf people out there who want to know what you put in your video and can't?

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#263

Post by hullo » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:01 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #99

hullo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT's endowment is 12b. That's a ways off Harvard's outlier of 36b, but if they're paying out 5% a year as a benchmark, that's $600m a year just off the endowment. Not being as rich as Bill Gates does not make one not wealthy if one still has over a billion dollars. One can not imagine it would be that hard for the folks at MIT to put together a program to crowdsource quality captioning. (Let alone some kind of "tech…

Do you deny my statement that " the vast majority of " MIT's endowment is earmarked, so it cannot arbitrarily reprogram that money to this purpose? From the insider's viewpoint, MIT has not been "wealthy" since the end Cold War and got hard hit by the Great Recession, although I haven't checked details as of the last few years. This has entered the legal arena. It's not hard to imagine the red tape of the remedies of…

The hallmark of a successful development program is to simultaneously convince you of two things (1) the school is of the highest quality and (2) it is drastically underfunded. Yes endowment funds are earmarked, but in most cases they're going to fund things that would need to be funded anyway (scholarships, professorships, center & department expenses). One of the strengths of a large endowment is that it increases the share of general funds that are discretionary, giving them room to do things that alumni don't get excited about, like cutting the grass and (yes) making campuses accessible to those with different physical capabilities.

But, in any case leaving aside MIT's 5th largest endowment, it's only one of the factors in determining whether a school is well off. One could also look, say, at the budget. Or research funding.

By just about any metric one could imagine, MIT is one of the richest schools in the nation.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#264

Post by sp332 » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

sadfaceunread wrote: post #122

sp332 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was hypothetical, but I guess you could say that donating courses only to non-deaf people is a cause.

So what about any charitable effort that discriminates on the basis of a protected class. If you can't do something for free to help one group without excluding some others no charity would be possible. Should MIT/Harvard intentionally avoid captioning? No. Should the government force them to use CCing? Hell no.

Your charitable cause is putting some people at a disadvantage then. If your charitable effort somehow must discriminate, it should do it in favor of the less-privileged group.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#265

Post by binarysolo » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #249

binarysolo wrote: post #146

I know several of the lawyers involved on the plaintiff's end (several of them blind and/or deaf) on a friendship, nonprofessional level -- and I'm noticing there's a lot of misunderstanding in the comments. However I am not a lawyer nor am I hugely aware of the nuances of the issues, so take this with a grain of salt. Basically the law firm in question is using lawsuits as a method of social activism to compel large…

This is terrible. What about lawyer costs for the defendants? This is exactly what old-school corporate world does (e.g. IBM): abusing the legal system for a shake-down.

I think we have a different definition of shakedown.

Also I think one of the hidden merits of lawsuits and original intents is to basically have two parties sort things out, with a third party to facilitate and enforce the disagreement. Believe me, as a non-law person this took me QUITE a while to get to this opinion until I see law being one of the only venues to effect change on issues such as discrimination, which at this point is something the deaf see as an issue but many able-bodied people do not. So at this point: bring in people who figure out exactly what the letter/spirit of the law, and let the right thing prevail.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#266

Post by ToastyMallows » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #196

jdreaver wrote: post #8

I don't like this type of precedent. If I make a video wherein I teach some concept, but don't provide closed captions, and then distribute the video for free, am I discriminating against the deaf? If I knew I had to create closed captions, and then make a braille transcript, or maybe even make my video colorblind friendly, I just wouldn't make the video in the first place. I sympathize with folks with disabilities,…

I can see the requirement for actually matriculated students. (I wonder if they have to provide ASL signers in-class for deaf students and braille books for the blind.) What I don't see is a requirement for free courses. That would be ridiculous. Why would anyone want to make anything available if someone is going to come around and sue? Instead of suing, why not start a project to automatically CC the videos, someth…

As a graduate from RIT, colleges definitely provide ASL interpreters in class for Deaf students.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#267

Post by hga » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:25 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #260

new299 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify the position you're arguing for. A university has a bunch of existing videos that have been taken of lectures. Someone asks "can I put these online for free?". The answer should be no you can't unless you're willing to have them all transcribed. I suppose it rests on the definition of reasonable accommodation which could range anywhere from "making the material available for transcription" to "full pr…

I think the law applies to new videos that are created for distribution online. I don't think it applies to videos created before the ADA was passed that are put online now. Or a private conversation that was published.

"I don't think it applies to videos created before the ADA was passed that are put online now."

It sure was applied to buildings that were built before the ADA was passed.

And what videos of interest would those be? Ableson and Sussman's SICP/6.001 lectures come to mind, and some Feynman lectures I assume are that old.

"Or a private conversation that was published."

Well, aren't we about to find that out in the legal arena?

You're only escape is "private", which suggests it should not be published at all. Especially in a two-party consent state like Massachusetts.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#268

Post by sp332 » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #267

sp332 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the law applies to new videos that are created for distribution online. I don't think it applies to videos created before the ADA was passed that are put online now. Or a private conversation that was published.

" I don't think it applies to videos created before the ADA was passed that are put online now. " It sure was applied to buildings that were built before the ADA was passed. And what videos of interest would those be? Ableson and Sussman's SICP/6.001 lectures come to mind, and some Feynman lectures I assume are that old. " Or a private conversation that was published. " Well, aren't we about to find that out in the l…

A building is not a video. An older private residence does not have to be upgraded to be ADA-compliant. A video which is intended for mass distribution should have some effort put into accessibility.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#269

Post by localfugue » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

This is a very bad precedent. I'm hearing impaired and I would never think of demanding this when I'm getting these things for free. Perhaps, I would not be saying this if I were paying for it - still, I may consider the other party when it comes to this.

Using the law as a weapon to demand something where we have alternatives[slides, notes or manuals] is, in my opinion, like "biting the hand that offers help".

That said, I have been seriously putting in effort to listen to videos without captioning. Yes, it's an uphill task and I'm willing to do it.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#270

Post by hga » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #261

jes wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your comment is thoughtful and well-intentioned, but I find myself wondering about the seemingly egalitarian nature of it. May I ask if are you saying that if I wanted to feed poor people, you would want to see me thwarted, unless I could feed every poor person? In other words, if an organization only has the resources to do a little bit of good in the world, unless they can treat everyone as equals, they sho…

If you can only do a little bit of good, you should do it for the underprivileged position and not for people who are already privileged.

With that attitude, MIT would never exist in the first place!!!

Every undergraduate who's ever attended has been rather "privileged" in being able to do serious math (although in the post-Civil War beginning a common track had seniors ending with the calculus). Nowadays you must at minimum be ready to learn the calculus and do calculus based mechanics and E&M ... at the MIT pace.

MIT (and CalTech) undergraduates have to learn at a much faster pace than is the norm, a lot of material in a fairly compressed schedule of 13 weeks of instruction if I remember correctly as of the '80s. That's not believed to be good for most STEM students, but we at least believe there's a place in the world for institutions like MIT and CalTech. One meme is that a fair amount of what you learn will be obsolete before your career is over, but there's merit in learning how to learn difficult stuff quickly.