[Wsssc] FW: Live Streaming Sports Events

[Joe Holliday]

WSSSC: here is AAG Bruce Marvin's report on live-streaming sports events, below. You may want to discuss this with your AAG, but it appears that you will need to either caption the events or discontinue live-streaming. See below for more detail.
                             [Joe]
[Compass]

Joe Holliday

Director, Student Services

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

jholliday at sbctc.edu<mailto:jholliday at sbctc.edu>* o: 360-704-4334 * f: 360-704-4418

sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> * Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> * Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>



From: Marvin, Bruce (ATG) <BruceM1 at ATG.WA.GOV>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2019 10:59 AM
To: Joe Holliday <jholliday at sbctc.edu>
Subject: FW: Live Streaming Sports Events

Joe,

Thanks for inviting me to present at the WSSSC meeting earlier this month.  This is the follow-up I promised regarding the question regarding live-streaming sports events and accessibility issues.

My understanding is that many CTCs link their college websites to live streams of college athletic events.  Announcers introduce the games, announce the scores, time outs, and so forth, but do not provide play-by-play descriptions of the action on the field.  The live-streamed content is not captioned and most colleges are not prepared to commit the financial resources necessary to provide captioning.  At least one college, concerned about accessibility issues, has begun broadcasting the uncaptioned games without sound.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, institutions of higher education are required to ensure that their websites and electronic technology are accessible.  This includes multi-media and videos posted on college websites, which would include live-streamed sporting events.  Accessibility standards require that video and multi-media be close captioned to accommodate persons with hearing disabilities.  DOJ ADA guidance further states that video should be accompanied by a descriptive service to accommodate persons with visual disabilities.  See https://www.ada.gov/effective-comm.htm (viewed on 02/11/2019).  Until recently, OCR has aggressively pursued enforcement actions against educational institutions whose websites fail to meet these standards.

Financial hardship is an exception to these accessibility requirements.  To prevail, an institution must carefully document the hardship and the decision must be made by the head of the agency.  Although captioning live-streaming of games might be outside the operating budget of most CTC sports programs, OCR is not likely to be sympathetic to such an argument, given the substantial resources available to institutions of higher education and the number of close captioning services and technologies now available in the marketplace.  Under these circumstances it would appear that colleges have two choices: (1) caption the games or (2) discontinue streaming the games on college websites.  While broadcasting games without sound  is initially appealing as it will provide persons with audio impairment equal access, removal of audio narrative may give rise to allegations that the site discriminates against persons with visual impairments.

Hope this information is useful.  Please give me a call if you or members of the WCCCS have questions or concerns.

Bruce

Attorney-Client Privileged Communication
Unless otherwise specifically indicated, the information contained in this e-mail message is an attorney-client communication and/or attorney work product and is, therefore, intended only for the review and use of the above-named person(s). If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, any distribution, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you believe you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender by calling (206) 464-5814.
H. Bruce Marvin
Assistant Attorney General
Education Division
800 Fifth Ave. #2000
Seattle, WA 98104-3188

206 464-5814





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ctc.edu/pipermail/wsssc_lists.ctc.edu/attachments/20190219/661b6848/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1030 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://lists.ctc.edu/pipermail/wsssc_lists.ctc.edu/attachments/20190219/661b6848/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 629079 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
URL: <http://lists.ctc.edu/pipermail/wsssc_lists.ctc.edu/attachments/20190219/661b6848/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1958 bytes
Desc: image003.jpg
URL: <http://lists.ctc.edu/pipermail/wsssc_lists.ctc.edu/attachments/20190219/661b6848/attachment-0005.jpg>