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</style><title>July 24, 2002</title><div class="original-url"><br><a href="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/word/2017washingtonseminar/final_2017_aimhe_fact_sheet.docx">https://nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/word/2017washingtonseminar/final_2017_aimhe_fact_sheet.docx</a><br><br></div><div id="article" role="article" style="text-rendering: optimizelegibility; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" class="system exported">
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<div class="page" style="text-align: start; word-wrap: break-word; max-width: 100%;"><h1 class="title" style="font-weight: 400; font-size: 2em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: start; -webkit-hyphens: manual; display: block; max-width: 100%;">July 24, 2002</h1><p style="max-width: 100%;"><a name="_GoBack" style="text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;"></a></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education Act </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Until a market driven solution for accessible instructional materials is achieved, blind college students will be denied access to critical course content. </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Technology has fundamentally changed the education system. </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">The scope of </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">i</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">nstructional</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> materials used at institutions of higher education has expanded. Curricular content comes in digital books, PDFs, webpages, etc., and most of this content is delivered through digital databases, learning management systems, and applications. The print world is</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> inherently inaccessible to </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">students with disabilities</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">, but technology </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">offers the opportunity</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> to expand the circle of participation</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">. Studies have found that,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> of the</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> 6.5 million </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">students with disabilities in </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">grades K-12, the number who </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">go on to pursue postsecondary education is growing.</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Blind students are facing insurmountable</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> barriers to </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">education.</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Instead of fulfilling the promise of equal access, technology has created more problems than the print world ever did. Data show that students with disabilities face</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> a variety of challenges, includin</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">g matriculation and college completion</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">failure</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> solely because</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> in the absence of clear accessibility guidelines, colleges and universities are sticking with the ad-hoc accommodations model.</span></span><a name="_Ref408753912" style="text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;"></a><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> Currently, schools deploy inaccessible technology and then modify another version for blind students, usually weeks or even months into class, creating a “separate-but-equal” landscape with n</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">early impenetrable barriers</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">. With only an eighteen percent employment rate, compared to sixty-five percent among people without disabilities,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> students with disabilities should not be denied access by the innovations that could have ensured full participation. </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Institutions of higher education need help to identify accessible material and comply with nondiscrimination laws. </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Titles II and III of the </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Americans with Disabilities Act </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">require schools to provide equal access, and in 2010, the US Departments of Justice and Education clarified that the use of inaccessible technology is prohibited under these laws.</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">In the six years since, over a dozen institutions have faced legal action for using inaccessible technology</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> and complaints are on the rise. Most litigation ends with a commitment from the school to embrace accessibility, but that commitment does little in a vast, uncoordinated higher education market.</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Accessibility solutions are available, but guidelines are sorely needed to stimulate the market. </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">The Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education Act will bring together people with disabilities, the higher education, publishing, and tech developing and manufacturing communities to develop a stakeholder driven solution to the issue of inaccessible instructional materials. With input from all relevant stakeholder communities,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> mainstream accessible instructional materials can be achieved, benefitting both institutions of higher education</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">,</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> and the students with disabilities they aim to serve. </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education Act</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">:</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Develops accessibility guidelines for instructional materials used in postsecondary education. </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">A purpose-based commission is tasked with developing accessibility criteria for </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">instructional materials and </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">the delivery systems/technologies used to access those materials. Additionally, the commission is tasked with developing an annotated list of existing national and international standards so that schools and developers can identify what makes a product usable by the blind.</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Provides incentive for institutions of higher education to follow the guidelines.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Institutions of higher education that use only technology that conforms with the guidelines will be deemed in compliance with the provisions of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act that pertain to schools’ use of technology. </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">For those instances </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">in which </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">accessible technology is simply not yet available, instances that will continue to diminish in frequency as accessible instructional materials become more mainstream, there is a limited safe harbor protection for institutions that otherwise adhere to existing disability law as well as </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">some</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> additional requirements as described in the AIM HE Act.</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Offers flexibility for schools while reiterating that pre-existing obligations still apply.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Colleges and universities are permitted to use material that does not conform to the guidelines as long as equal access laws are still honored. Conformity with the AIM HE guidelines is only one path to compliance; schools can pursue a different path but will forfeit the safe harbor legal protection. </span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">REMOVE BARRIERS TO EQUALITY IN THE CLASSROOM.</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Cos</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">pons</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">or Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education Act.</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">To cosponsor </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">in the House of Representatives,</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> contact:</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Otto </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Katt</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">, Legislative Fellow, Congressman Phil Roe (R-TN)</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Phone: <a href="tel:(202) 225-6356" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%;">(202) 225-6356</a>, Email: </span></span><a href="mailto:otto.katt@mail.house.gov" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">otto.katt@mail.house.gov</span></span></a></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">For more information</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">,</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> contact:</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Gabe Cazares</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">, </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Government Affairs Specialist, </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">National Federation of the Blind</span></span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Phone: <a href="tel:(410) 659-9314" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%;">(410) 659-9314</a>, </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">extension</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> 2</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">206, E</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">mail: </span></span><a href="mailto:gcazares@nfb.org" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">gcazares@nfb.org</span></span></a></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-style: italic; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">For more information visit: </span></span><a href="http://www.nfb.org/aim_he" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-style: italic; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">www.nfb.org/aim_he</span></span></a></p><div style="max-width: 100%;"><div style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Mark Riccobono</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">,</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">President</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> |</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">200 East Wells Street </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">at Jernigan Place</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Baltimore, M</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">D</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> 21230</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> | </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> <a href="tel:410 659 9314" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%;">410 659 9314</a></span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> | </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;"><a href="http://www.nfb.org">www.nfb.org</a></span></span></p></div><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></div></div></div></div><div><br><br>Jim McCollum<div>Legislative Co-ordinator</div><div>National Federation of the Blind of Connecticut</div><div><a href="mailto:j.mccollum64@comcast.net">j.mccollum64@comcast.net</a></div><div>860-581-0430</div><div>Sent from my iPhone</div></div></body></html>