Education
Accessibility Compliance
Course video, LMS content, and financial-aid forms make higher education one of the sectors with the longest real history of accessibility complaints, from the well-documented Harvard/MIT and UC Berkeley captioning cases in the mid-2010s onward. Here's how ADA, Section 504, and Section 508 apply.
Who Must Comply?
Three overlapping frameworks typically apply to a single school, depending on its public/private status and whether it receives federal funding.
Public Colleges & Universities
As government entities, public institutions fall under the same ADA Title II framework (and the DOJ's WCAG 2.1 AA expectation) covered in full, including deadlines, on AccessiSight's government accessibility guide.
Private Colleges & Universities
Private colleges and schools are generally places of public accommodation under ADA Title III (there is no employee threshold; religious institutions are exempt), and most also receive federal student aid, which brings in Section 504.
Any Institution Receiving Federal Funding
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibits disability discrimination by any recipient of federal funding, which covers most U.S. colleges and universities through federal student aid, independent of Section 508's narrower federal-agency/contractor scope.
A Real, Well-Documented History
In the mid-2010s, several major U.S. universities faced real, well-documented complaints and lawsuits over uncaptioned online course video content. The National Association of the Deaf brought a case against Harvard and MIT over inaccessible free online course content. Separately, UC Berkeley, following a DOJ finding that the university's free public course videos and podcasts violated the ADA, was widely reported to have removed a large amount of that public content rather than caption it.
Neither outcome is a story any institution wants to repeat: one path led to years of litigation, the other to pulling public educational content offline entirely. Captioning course video from the start avoids both.
Common WCAG Failure Patterns in Education
Uncaptioned lecture and course video
WCAG 1.2.2 · Level AThe gap at the center of the well-documented mid-2010s Harvard/MIT and UC Berkeley cases: recorded lectures and course video without captions block Deaf and hard-of-hearing students from course content entirely.
LMS & course-material PDF accessibility
Syllabi, scanned readings, and slide decks distributed as untagged or scanned-image PDFs inside the LMS have no real text layer for a screen reader to access, even though the LMS platform itself may be accessible.
Unlabeled registration & financial-aid forms
WCAG 1.3.1 / 4.1.2 · Level ACourse registration, financial-aid, and housing application forms are exactly the kind of complex multi-field forms that fail the #3 most common ADA violation type: missing or mismatched labels.
Keyboard-inaccessible LMS navigation
WCAG 2.1.1 · Level ACustom course-navigation widgets, embedded quiz tools, and third-party LMS plugins frequently trap keyboard focus (the #4 most common ADA violation type), locking out students who can't use a mouse.
Education Compliance Checklist
Frequently Asked Questions
Are colleges and universities required to make their websites accessible?
Yes, through overlapping laws. Public colleges and universities are government entities and fall under ADA Title II, the same DOJ framework requiring WCAG 2.1 AA covered on our government accessibility guide. Private colleges (other than religious institutions) fall under ADA Title III as places open to the public. Any institution receiving federal funding is additionally subject to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits disability discrimination by federal fund recipients.
What happened with Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley?
In the mid-2010s, universities faced real, well-documented complaints and lawsuits over uncaptioned online course video. The National Association of the Deaf brought a case against Harvard and MIT over inaccessible free online course content, and UC Berkeley, following a DOJ finding that its public course videos violated the ADA, was widely reported to have removed a large amount of that free public content rather than caption it. These cases pushed video captioning to the top of higher-education compliance priorities.
Does course video need captions?
Yes. Recorded lecture and course video needs captions to meet WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded), a Level A criterion. It comes up often in ADA website complaints, and it is the specific gap at the center of the Harvard/MIT and Berkeley cases.
What about PDFs and readings inside the LMS?
Syllabi, scanned readings, and course-material PDFs distributed through a learning management system need real accessible structure (tagged headings, reading order, and text that a screen reader can access) rather than a scanned image with no underlying text layer.
Does Section 508 apply to a private university?
Only indirectly. Section 508 applies to U.S. federal agencies and federal contractors. It mainly reaches a university's own systems if the school is acting as a federal contractor. For most private universities, ADA Title III and Section 504 (as a recipient of federal student aid funding) are the operative frameworks, not Section 508 directly.
Not legal advice. This guide is educational and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney or your institution's general counsel for compliance guidance specific to your organization.
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