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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
OK, but if the course materials are made available to the blind student(s) -- again, in braille, an audio format or a file accessible with a PC -- then it stands to reason that there is no discrimination.
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It's possible that argument will hold up--IF those course materials are available to blind students.
However, it's likely that the universities are being given a case of Kindles full of textbooks to distribute to students, and there is no set of audio/braille format textbooks being offered to blind students at the same time. This is a trial run, a marketing test.... I suspect nobody considered that "marketing experiments" being run in an institution that receives government funding is held to much stricter standards than one being run on a random at-large populace.
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Plus, it's not like TTS is a brand new technology that Amazon invented from whole cloth. Apple has included a "speech" function that could read text aloud since the 1990's.
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It's not that it's new, but that it's being provided to students... but only to sighted students. This is no more legal than offering running shoes, but only to male students. (Perhaps by not offering sizes smaller than men's 10.) It might be legally equivalent to offering promotional backpacks, but only to white students.
It'll certainly be worth watching; accessibility laws don't get a lot of attention beyond businesses grumbling about adding ramps & handrails.