Miranda Lacy and Harold Rogers met as undergraduates at West Virginia State University and later enrolled in West Virginia University’s online Master’s in Social Work. Both are blind and say large portions of the program’s digital coursework — from PDFs and course modules to charts and images — consistently failed to work with screen readers, the software that turns on-screen content into speech.
Lacy, who lost her remaining vision after surgery three years ago, taught herself screen readers and other assistive tools to keep studying. Rogers, who has limited vision in one eye, helped adapt materials for nonvisual use. Despite graduating with honors at the undergraduate level, they say WVU’s graduate courses were filled with files that were unlabeled, poorly formatted or otherwise unreadable by assistive technologies. What should be a short reading could become a frustrating, time-consuming obstacle when a screen reader announces “unlabeled image” or trips over a stray gap in a PDF title.
After almost two years of asking for fixes and trying to work with the university, Lacy and Rogers, with support from the National Federation of the Blind, sued WVU, alleging the school systematically denies blind students equal access to its educational materials. Rogers also says he faced disciplinary action after seeking accommodations — a claim WVU declined to address because the case is pending.
Their experience reflects a far larger problem: many colleges, public libraries and government websites remain difficult or impossible to use for people with disabilities. While the Americans with Disabilities Act has long required accessibility, it lacked detailed technical standards for digital content, contributing to a patchwork of inaccessible online services that harm blind, deaf and other disabled students.
A recent update to Title II of the ADA, due to take effect in late April, sets clearer technical rules. Public entities — including state colleges and universities — must follow a modern version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1). That means things like better color contrast for low-vision users, captions for videos, properly labeled images and documents, and interfaces that can be navigated without a mouse. Advocates and former Justice Department officials say the rule should push institutions to create materials that are accessible by design rather than relying on individualized fixes after a problem arises.
Jennifer Mathis, who worked at the Justice Department and helped draft the rule, has called digital accessibility a crisis and a priority for the disability community. Judith Risch, a former Department of Education official involved in the rulemaking, notes many accessibility improvements benefit everyone, not only people with disabilities.
The rule sets deadlines: publicly funded entities serving 50,000 or more people must meet the standards by April 24; smaller institutions have until April 26, 2027. But compliance will not be simple. Universities are complex organizations, and bringing all digital content up to standard can take years, new workflows, training and steady funding. Accessibility teams often lack budget, authority and staff, according to Corbb O’Connor of Level Access, a digital accessibility firm.
Responsibility is also being redistributed. Instead of falling mainly to disability services, faculty, website administrators and procurement offices must also ensure accessibility. Yet enforcement remains a concern: there is no routine federal inspection program, so compliance may still hinge on complaints and litigation. As Ella Callow, an ADA compliance officer at UC Berkeley, observed, large institutions are “big ships to turn,” and disabled people frequently shoulder the burden of seeking remedies.
Lacy and Rogers say they tried to negotiate and hoped to improve online learning at WVU without litigation. Now the new ADA rule could strengthen their case and encourage colleges to adopt accessible practices proactively. They plan to graduate this summer and hope their lawsuit leads to lasting change so future students do not face the same barriers. “If it’s not us to fight, then who’s gonna do it?” Rogers asks.