SHARE: NAD Sues for Online Education Access

NAD February 12, 2015 in ASL 19 Subscribers Subscribe

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[Video description and transcript can be found below.]

Do you enjoy watching streaming media like movies and TV shows? Well, what about educational videos like mathematics, astronomy, or even art? Perhaps you'd like to learn what U.S. President Barack Obama said during his campus visit? Watch NAD CEO Howard A. Rosenblum share about a lawsuit that the NAD and several other law firms are pursuing, to advocate for online education access for all.

Read the press release: Link

Video description and transcript:

Video fades to a gradient background with dark blue to light blue, a grey National Association of the Deaf (NAD) logo is centered. Video fades to NAD CEO Howard A. Rosenblum. The NAD logo appears as a light watermark in the bottom right corner.

HOWARD: Hello. As you know, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) has long advocated for full access to videos online for deaf and hard of hearing people. The NAD sued Netflix because their streaming movies and TV shows were not really captioned. Once we won the case, 100 percent of their online video content is captioned! Other video streaming companies like Netflix are also starting to provide full captioned access. However, that's not all. There's actually more videos out there, specifically those provided by universities and colleges. These videos are called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) which have academic content and are available online. Such videos can be about mathematics, astronomy, cooking, even art -- and there are also videos with guest lecturers and presenters like U.S. Presidents or famous stars that have been invited to campus to speak to the students and faculty. These videos are free and do not require student registration -- anyone can watch these great videos! However, these videos are not accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people because not all the videos have captions. Out of the very few videos that have captions, many of them have errors and are not of the appropriate quality. Moreover, there are thousands of videos that have no captions at all. This is not equal access. To resolve this, the NAD is suing two major universities: Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Both universities have many of these videos, so we are suing them first and expect to ensure full online video access at all other universities and colleges across the country. This lawsuit is part of our battle for full access to online media content. We want equal access for all.

Video fades to the same gradient background with dark blue to light blue, a grey National Association of the Deaf (NAD) logo is centered. White text below the logo appears, "A production of the National Association of the Deaf (copyright) 2015 All Rights Reserved" with four teal social media icons, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.