{"id":19174,"date":"2014-10-02T13:24:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T17:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=19174"},"modified":"2016-08-10T12:27:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T16:27:28","slug":"accessibility-in-higher-education-the-teach-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2014\/10\/02\/accessibility-in-higher-education-the-teach-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Accessibility in Higher Education: The TEACH Act"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AccessibleIconVector-1\"<\/a>
Pic via: The Accessible Icon Project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let me start by saying, accessibility is a human rights issue, not an afterthought. Frankly, it\u2019s an insult to people with disabilities that access is even a subject of debate. And yet\u2026<\/p>\n

The Technology, Equality, and Accessibility in College and Higher Education Act (i.e., the TEACH Act<\/a>) is currently under debate in congress. The legislation requires that technologies used in college classrooms be accessible to all students, including students with disabilities. It is entirely possible that you have not\u00a0heard of the TEACH Act, but for those who it most affects\u2014students with bodies that deviate from the norm\u2014the stakes are quite high. The bill has some strong support, but also strong opposition, from surprising sources. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Digitally mediated technologies play a significant role in the pedagogies of many college professors, and success in a class often depends upon the successful navigation of these technologies. Though most would agree that giving some students learning resources while withholding those resources from others is egregiously unfair, students with disabilities often find themselves on the losing end of just this scenario. Rather than a malicious or calculating decision on the part of educators, these inequities are instead a product of ambient ableism, in which general logic accounts for needs of \u2018typical\u2019 bodies, while those with bodies deemed \u2018non-typical\u2019 are expected to adapt and make due.<\/p>\n

This norm-privileging logic guides those who argue against the TEACH act. The opposition is led by the American Council on Education (ACE), which, along with 20 other educational groups, wrote a letter<\/a> to Tom Harkin, the senator who chairs the Education Committee, detailing their concerns. They argue that TEACH will prevent technological development and implementation, harming all students. As stated in the letter:<\/p>\n

\u00a0This provision creates an impossible-to-meet standard for institutions and will result in a significant chilling effect in the usage of new technology<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Yes, perhaps requiring educators to employ only accessible technologies in the classroom will \u2018chill\u2019 the use of new technologies. However, this \u2018chilling\u2019 points not to a problem with TEACH, but rather, an ingrained problem of prejudice, manifesting in nothing less than institutional bigotry.<\/p>\n

ACE\u2019s argument rests on ableist practices, in which technologies\u2014both \u2018built\u2019 and digital\u2014 are created for \u2018typical\u2019 users, and then when financially plausible and temporally convenient, adapted for people with different needs. This is a logic that dismisses, or entirely ignores, the principles of universal design<\/a>, slugging off the needs of those on the margins with a flippant\u00a0\u2018ya, we\u2019ll get to you when we have time, but let\u2019s take care of the Normals first.\u2019 It is a model of build-then-adapt, rather than build with the wide variety of human needs in mind.<\/p>\n

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA<\/a>) requires \u2018reasonable accommodation\u2019 for those utilizing public and commercial services. In 2010, this was expanded to include accessible design. The legal debate, then, rests on what is reasonable. I implore those who oppose TEACH\u00a0to consider the implications of defining equal access to educational materials as even\u00a0potentially\u00a0<\/em>unreasonable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jenny Davis is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at James Madison University and a weekly contributor for Cyborgology. Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jenny_L_Davis<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start by saying, accessibility is a human rights issue, not an afterthought. Frankly, it\u2019s an insult to people with disabilities that access is even a subject of debate. And yet\u2026 The Technology, Equality, and Accessibility in College and Higher Education Act (i.e., the TEACH Act) is currently under debate in congress. The legislation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[13951,10312,29,345,13992,363,55,78,13,371,14,747,26676],"class_list":["post-19174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-ableism","tag-accessibility","tag-class","tag-disability","tag-disableism","tag-equality","tag-gender","tag-higher-education","tag-inequality","tag-policy","tag-race","tag-sts","tag-teach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19174"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21499,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19174\/revisions\/21499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}