The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) announced on February 18, 2020 a landmark settlement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that institutes a series of new guidelines to make the university’s website and online resources accessible for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. The settlement follows a similar agreement with Harvard University in November 2019, which together represent the most comprehensive set of online accessibility requirements in higher education and provide a new model for ensuring worldwide online and digital accessibility in academia and business for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. View the Notice online and share your comments to the court directly, information on how is provided on the Notice page.

View the Notice: mitcaptioningsettlement.com


HOWARD: This video is regarding our settlement with MIT in Boston. If you remember, we sued both Harvard and MIT. In November 2019, we settled with Harvard. Now, we have settled with MIT. For our settlement with Harvard, we were required to share a Notice -- we are doing the same now for our settlement with MIT. This is our Notice of Settlement for MIT. Anytime lawyers sue someone and reach an agreed settlement between both parties, the lawyers must check with the clients who must approve the settlement. The clients are the plaintiffs who sued. In most cases, the plaintiffs are enough to finish the case with the settlement. However, just like our settlement with Harvard, this is a class action lawsuit, not just the four plaintiffs including the NAD. We cannot finalize the settlement on our own. Because this is a class action, we sued on behalf of the deaf and hard of hearing community who did not have access to MIT's online content. As we negotiate the settlement, we are required to share the Notice with anyone who wants to share feedback about the settlement. All deaf and hard of hearing people have the opportunity to send their objections, questions, comments, or support to the court. You can send feedback to the link provided in this post. The Notice is also available online in ASL. Please review and share feedback with the court if you want. Thank you.