Kindle Use In Classrooms Discriminatory Against Blind Students?

WASHINGTON — Three universities testing Amazon's Kindle in the classroom have agreed to shelve the electronic book readers until they are fully functional for blind students, under a deal struck Wednesday with the Justice Department.

The legal settlements were made with Pace University in New York, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and Reed College in Portland, Ore.

Two organizations representing the blind had sued after universities announced a pilot program to use the Kindle in classrooms.

Officials say the version of the Kindle being used in the pilot program has a text-to-speech function, but the device's menu does not, so it is impossible for blind students to navigate through different electronic books or within an electronic book.

The agreement takes effect as soon as the spring semester ends – giving the schools time to finish the pilot project with the Kindles, but preventing them from continuing or expanding their use until the blind and visually impaired can use them as easily as students who can see.

The agreement covers other similar electronic book readers, including those made by Sony and bookseller Barnes & Noble.

"Advancing technology is systematically changing the way universities approach education, but we must be sure that emerging technologies offer individuals with disabilities the same opportunities as other students," Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said in a statement. "These agreements underscore the importance of full and equal educational opportunities for everyone."

The Justice Department's civil rights division began examining the issue to see if the use of Kindles or other e-readers violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The announcement of the settlement comes two days after a similar deal was struck with Arizona State University.

Last June, the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind joined a blind ASU student in suing Arizona State, alleging that the Kindle's inaccessibility to blind students constituted a violation of federal law.

Comments

[Carrick]

04:00 PM on 01/18/2010

I don't understand. One could argue that books printed on paper are discriminatory, since in their normal form, they are totally inaccessible to blind students.

I think what we're seeing here is another straw man being thrown into the mix by print publishers, trying to hold the flood of progress from overflowing into their overblown profit picture.

Fact... text books are wildly overpriced. Having books available on an eReader means that the prices for books would naturally be expected to go down and updates can be easily and cheaply accomplished, without re-publishing books. This is all about the money, not accomodating sight impaired students. Please. Lets have a little honesty in the discussion.

This is not to say that having eBooks tables of contents and menus available as text to speech isn't a good idea, but this delay is just a stalling tactic.

[AudsMom]

03:12 AM on 01/19/2010

100% agree!

[ESerafina42]

01:28 PM on 01/15/2010

I don't see how this makes any difference from the past. At least the Kindle has SOME capability for being used by visually impaired students, even if they would need a sighted student pushing the buttons. A regular printed book has NONE.

[SF TKF]

05:49 PM on 01/14/2010

The blind students would already have had to use a Braille or audio book, what format the sighted students’ book is (print or ebook) seems irrelevant.

[Nate the Heretic]

03:26 PM on 01/14/2010

Why don't they just make some braille kindles? Like those novel retractable pin things you can stick your hand or face in and make an impression..just make it in reverse and it would pop up braille patterns for the applicable page you're reading.

[ESerafina42]

12:37 PM on 01/15/2010

That isn't the issue, Nate. The e-book reader already has text-to-speech capability, but the menu functions don't. So it's not READING the book that's the problem, it's accessing it in the first place.