Lawsuit Raises Issue of Accommodating
Learning-Disabled Students Online

By DAN CARNEVALE

A former Capella University student has filed a federal lawsuit against the online institution, asserting that it violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by using technology that does not accommodate his learning disabilities.

Capella officials deny the allegations in the lawsuit, which was filed on June 30. Some experts say the student may have trouble winning the case because there are few clear guidelines dictating what assistive technologies colleges are supposed to provide to students with learning disabilities. But the issue is one that may soon arise more often, and in which the legal standards are murky.

The student who filed the lawsuit, , says his learning disabilities include short-term memory loss, which is recognized by the federal law he cited.

He took courses from Capella as part of a master's program in information-technology-system design. After he completed one quarter at the university, in 2004, the administration installed a new software system, made by WebCT, for managing online courses. Mr. La Marca says he found the new setup confusing and difficult to work with. "It was just a navigational nightmare," he says. "It made it impossible for me to study."

Before the switch, he says, he received A's in the two courses he completed. With the new software in place, he says, he had trouble doing his assignments.

"I have a lot of educational experience, and I have never seen anything like this," said
Mr. La Marca, a California resident who had already earned a master's degree in education from California State University at San Bernardino, taking traditional courses rather than online ones. "Something needs to be done immediately about the accessibility to online courses."

Heated Discussions

He complained to university officials and asked them to switch back to the old software, which they said they could not do. Mr. La Marca then asked for more time to complete his course work, and discussed with the officials how much more time he should be given. But when the discussions became heated, he said, he was suspended from the university. Mr. La Marca asserts that his suspension was in retaliation for his complaints about the software's accessibility.

Greg Thome [sic], general counsel at Capella, says Mr. La Marca's suspension was for inappropriate behavior in online courses and had nothing to do with his accusations. The lawyer says students and instructors complained that Mr. La Marca was making improper comments in class.

"I would characterize it as personal attacks, questioning the intelligence of people," Mr. Thome [sic] said. "We had complaints from other learners saying, Look at what this guy is doing."

Mr. Thome [sic] says the university gave Mr. La Marca ample warning before suspending him.

Shortly after the suspension, Mr. La Marca filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. After an investigation that lasted several months, the department found that Capella had done nothing wrong. Mr. La Marca says he is appealing that decision.

He filed his lawsuit against Capella in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division, in Santa Ana. The lawsuit asserts that Capella officials belittled Mr. La Marca and intimidated him for making complaints. He is seeking reinstatement at Capella as well as unspecified monetary damages.

Few Guidelines

Many online programs have worked to make Web sites accessible to deaf and blind users, by providing closed-caption text and textual descriptions of graphics. But experts have found that online programs often lack accommodations for students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder. Part of the problem is that there are few guidelines available.

Because there are no clear standards, it is difficult for institutions to know what they are supposed to do for such students, says Greg Gay, technology-transfer coordinator at the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Center, a research group that helps governments around the world set Web standards for accommodating people with disabilities.

Although Mr. Gay, who is not a lawyer, has not seen the lawsuit against Capella, he said he doubted that Mr. La Marca would prevail. "The guidelines just aren't there to support that type of suit," he said. "I'd be interested to hear how this actually turns out."

Steven Mendelsohn, a lawyer who is an independent consultant on information-access and disability issues, has not seen the lawsuit either. But he says the crucial question in such litigation is whether a college or software company has shown due diligence in making technology accessible to students with disabilities. If it has neglected to use assistive technology that is available and affordable, a college could be held liable, he says.

"You want to design all systems, just like you design all buildings, with accessibility in mind," said Mr. Mendelsohn, of New York City. "It's going to be a growing issue in the coming years."

Russell J. Thomas Jr., the lawyer for Mr. La Marca, says the case could help set standards for what providers of online education need to do to accommodate students with disabilities. "We're on the frontier on this one," he said. "We're probably going to make some new law here."

Mr. Thomas said he has not ruled out also filing a suit against WebCT, the software company that the university uses for its online courses. Officials of WebCT were not available for comment, but they pointed to their Web site, which states that the company's software abides by current guidelines for accommodating students with disabilities.

Compatibility Issues

Judy Brewer is director of the Web Accessibility Initiative at the World Wide Web Consortium, which sets many protocols for the Internet. It is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While online education is often helpful for students who use wheelchairs, she says, it is often not accommodating for those with less obvious disabilities.

"The majority of online-learning platforms do have accessibility problems," Ms. Brewer says. "There are many different kinds of barriers that affect people with different types of disabilities."

Because students with physical disabilities often use assistive computer tools, such as audible text readers and screen magnifiers, software makers need to make their programs compatible with those tools, she says.

Navigation controls on Web sites should remain consistent on different parts of the sites, Ms. Brewer adds. That way, the interface will remain predictable, making it less confusing for students with learning disabilities.

Jane Jarrow, president of Disability Access Information and Support, an organization that helps colleges meet disability standards, says there are few clear standards to determine what accommodations a college should provide for a student with learning disabilities.

For instance, in a classroom, it is generally well established how much extra time students with various disabilities need to complete various tasks, she says. But in the online world, it is difficult to determine what is too much extra time and what is not enough. The issue is something that should be studied over several years, she says.

"We have no idea how the disability is impacted by online tasks," Ms. Jarrow said. "So this is really virgin territory."