The Internet Is a Necessity
  And Web accessibility for the disabled makes sense for 
everyone.
  Last month FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly told us the 
Internet is "not a necessity."
  At a speech to the Internet Innovation Alliance, an 
organization that promotes broadband accessibility, O'Rielly said 
people "can and do" live without Internet access.  "Instead," he 
offered, "the term necessity should be reserved to those items 
that humans cannot live without such as food, shelter, and 
water."
  When he made this statement, the commissioner was presumably 
thinking of the parts of life online that sometimes irk us: 
teens' eyes locked on their smartphones, the innumerable cat 
videos, polarizing rants of political candidates and other 
talking heads on social media.  His understanding appears to be 
based on Vint Cerf's feeling that technology "is an enabler of 
rights, not a right itself."
  But the Internet is increasingly about essential life needs, 
especially when it comes to access to employment, government 
services, health care, and education.  Try applying for a job or 
enrolling at a local college or university without a broadband 
connection, and you'll run into trouble.
  A similar problem confronts many people who try to use websites 
that don't have the kind of code that makes them accessible-what 
developers call "universal design." In a recent study by Jonathan 
Lazar, professor of computer and information sciences at Towson 
University, only 28 percent of blind applicants were able to 
complete online job applications because many of the sites in the 
study didn't use standards of accessible Web design.  In February 
the National Association of the Deaf sued Harvard and MIT for 
discriminating against deaf and hard of hearing people by failing 
to caption the online content they make available to the general 
public, including massive open online courses, aka MOOCs.  
Without a job or the education to make employment possible, 
disabled communities are increasingly at risk of losing the 
essential life needs-"food, water, and shelter?-that O'Rielly 
outlined.
  So access is quickly becoming mandatory.  And that's a problem, 
because as access becomes more integral to the essentials of 
everyday American life, the gap between those who have access to 
the Internet and to its content-and those who don't-grows.  This 
gap can be significant.  People with perceptual disabilities, 
such as those who are deaf or blind, require websites to provide 
closed captioning or to be flexible enough to work well with 
screen reader technology.  Websites also need to be compatible 
with alternate input devices-such as speech recognition or eye 
tracking-so that those with motor disabilities can use them.
  Several laws require accessibility for the disabled, but 
perhaps the best known is the Americans With Disabilities Act.  
This month the United States will celebrate the 25thanniversary 
of the ADA.  The ADA was signed into law by President George H.W.  
Bush on July 26, 1990, to "ensure that people with disabilities 
are given the basic guarantees for which they have worked so long 
and so hard: independence, freedom of choice, control of their 
lives, the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich 
mosaic of the American mainstream."
  Title III of the ADA requires that public and private 
establishments provide reasonable accommodations to the disabled.  
While there are 12 specifically mentioned "places of public 
accommodation" listed in the statute, access to the Internet is 
conspicuously missing-mainly because the Internet of 1990 is not 
the Internet we rely on today.  Establishing the Internet as a 
"place of public accommodation" has been a story of two steps 
forward, one step back.  But that is changing, thanks to a new 
generation of ADA activists who won't accept a second-class 
Internet.
  This past spring the Justice Department was expected to advance 
rulemaking on Web accessibility for all sites under the ADA.  
Those rules would have outlined accessibility standards for 
private websites under the ADA.  But that stalled-again.  
However, accessibility standards are in place for government-run 
and government-funded sites under Section 508 of the 
Rehabilitation Act (with revised standards set to take effect 
later this year), and the DOJ has publicly stated that it views 
the Internet as a "place of public accommodation." In the past 
year and a half, the DOJ put more muscle into that view by filing 
statements of interest in the Harvard and MIT lawsuit and another 
lawsuit involving Lucky Brand jeans.
  In the Harvard and MIT case, the Justice Department squarely 
stated that the ADA and other federal laws obligate the 
universities "to provide effective communication to ensure equal 
access" to online courses.  In the other case, a blind plaintiff 
is suing Lucky Jeans for failing to provide an accessible 
touchscreen device for swiping his debit card to purchase 
clothing.  In its statement, the DOJ argues that Lucky Jeans is 
obligated to provide the accommodation despite the fact that such 
a device is not specifically mentioned in Title III of the ADA.  
It also endorses the idea that the Internet should be considered 
a place of public accommodation, saying: "[T]he Department has 
long considered websites to be covered by Title III despite the 
fact that there are no specific technical requirements for 
websites currently in the regulation or ADA Standards."
  One recent district court ruling from Vermont also shows 
promise for supporting the Internet as a place of public 
accommodation under the ADA.  But since 1990, appeals courts have 
been divided on the issue of whether the ADA applies to 
nonphysical structures, like the Internet.  We're likely to hear 
more about the case in Vermont; it has moved into the discovery 
phase after the court allowed an ADA Web accessibility claim 
against the digital library and e-book subscription service 
Scribd to proceed.
  It's time for the DOJ, Congress, and all of us to prioritize 
Web accessibility.  This is not just about doing the right thing 
for the disabled.  (Indeed, many who identify as today's ADA 
generation are not particularly interested in being the stars of 
our charity narratives.) Web accessibility for the disabled makes 
sense for a number of key social and economic reasons:
  1.  Web accessibility is something we all want and need.  
According the National Council on Disability, about 25 percent of 
people will acquire a disability at some point in their lives-yet 
when polled, only 2 percent of Americans think it will ever 
happen to them.  The point here is Web accessibility is something 
we all will want and need-at the very least, we will have a 
family member who will want and need it.  The disability 
community doesn't always embrace this phrase, but we are all 
"temporarily abled."
  2.  It makes good business sense.  Researchers and developers 
argue there arenumerous downstream advantages to designing 
accessible sites.  Much like wheelchair ramps and elevators 
benefit parents with strollers, Web accessibility will benefit 
all of us, particularly in mobile (think screen readers, 
natural-language voice tools like Siri, closed captioning, etc.).  
Web accessibility, developers say, is a form of innovation that 
helps to drive development.  It also attracts new customers and 
offers employers the chance to consider disabled workers in their 
hiring decisions.
  3.  Standards for Web accessibility aren't new-they've been 
around for 16 years.  Simply forgetting to consider accessibility 
from the outset should no longer be an excuse.  Small 
efforts-like adjusting colors of hyperlinks for the colorblind or 
labeling graphics with alt text, which gives a text description 
of an image-can go a long way.  The Web Accessibility Initiative 
has been championing this cause for some time.  Costs for 
accessibility vary, but we're talking about an additional 2 
percent in development costs if you plan at the outset, according 
to Jonathan Lazar, the Towson professor who has been studying Web 
accessibility issues for 15 years.  (And yes, some exceptions 
will need to be made, just as exceptions exist in real-space 
accessibility.  But the point is we need a baseline.)
  4.  We're missing a hugely important voice in society.  When we 
don't include disabled communities in arguments about health 
care, the economy, parenting, and more, we miss important 
viewpoints.  In addition, disability activists are mobilizing 
online in ways that weren't always previously possible, and they 
are talking to one another across disabilities and on platforms 
that need accessible standards to do that.  We need to support 
that communication across and among disability groups with 
accessible standards.
  There is a reason we talk about "life online." O'Rielly's 
comments notwithstanding, the time has come to fully include 
disabled communities in the necessities of that life.


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