[nfbmi-talk] uncle sam says they are accessable

[joe harcz Comcast]

Yea right and I've got a bridge to sell them over the Detroit River....

Joe
U.S. Refutes Claims GSA Website Is Unusable by Blind

 

Lisa Hoffman, The National Law Journal

 

August 13, 2014    |

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The government-run System for Award Management website provides a central contractor registry. (screen grab). The government-run System for Award Management

website provides a central contractor registry. (screen grab).

 

The U.S. General Services Administration has asked a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action filed by blind contractors who allege the agency’s

website is effectively unusable by people with vision disabilities.

 

In an Aug. 8

motion

to ditch the lawsuit brought by the American Council of the Blind and three blind plaintiffs, the GSA said its own testing by a blind technician showed

the site is accessible to the visually impaired.

 

The agency also argued that private citizens have no right to sue the federal government under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a landmark measure that prohibits

discrimination on the basis of disability and mandates equal opportunity for all who are eligible to, in this case, participate fully in government contracting.

 

The only remedy available to the plaintiffs is through an administrative complaint, which the agency contends the three contractors did not follow.

 

In American Council of the Blind v. Tangherlini, filed on April 22 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs contend that a key

GSA website on which all federal contractors are required to register and annually renew their contracts, and which serves as a resource for researching

contracts, is effectively unusable by people with vision disabilities.

 

The site, SAM.gov—shorthand for the System for Award Management database—lacks compatibility with “screen reader” software, which translates into speech

all the facets of website navigation, according to the class complaint.

 

Millions of blind users rely upon such software; without it, the buttons, checkboxes, dropdown menus, search functions, site registrations and other functions

are unintelligible. And SAM.gov’s help desk, with technical staff lacking knowledge to help disabled users, is little help, the complaint said.

 

But GSA contends that a test of the site in May and June showed that, by using the Job Access With Speech, or JAWS, screen reader, all areas of the site

were fully accessible to those with vision disabilities. The agency said the plaintiffs provided insufficient details to sustain the claim about the help

desk.

 

Plaintiffs’ attorneys include Lewis Wiener of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan in Washington and Matthew Handley of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil

Rights and Urban Affairs. GSA’s counsel is Nathan Swinton, a civil division trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice.

 

Lisa Hoffman is a contributor to law.com.

 

Companies, agencies mentioned:

Job Access |

GSA |

American Council of the Blind |

US District Court |

United States Department of Justice

 

Law firms mentioned:

Sutherland Asbill & Brennan

 

Source:

 

http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202666561139/US-Refutes-Claims-GSA-Website-Is-Unusable-by-Blind?mcode=1202615432992&curindex=0&slreturn=20140714104712