Scheduled for Research Consortium Leisure & Recreation and Sport Management & Administration Poster Session, Thursday, April 14, 2005, 3:45 PM - 5:15 PM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Area I


Title II of the ADA and Web Accessibility (Sport Management)

John M. Grady, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC and Damon P. S. Andrew, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

Since passage of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, there has been an increased effort to integrate people with disabilities fully into society. At the same time, there has also been an information technology revolution that has introduced emerging assistive technology to aid people with disabilities in participating in the information age. While the information technology revolution has the potential to eliminate many of the historic barriers faced by people with disabilities, it could also create new barriers if a web site is not designed and implemented with accessibility and inclusivity in mind (U.S. Dept. of Justice, 2004). These new barriers have the potential to exclude people with disabilities from participation in sport and entertainment opportunities (National Council on Disability, 2003). This has created the novel legal issue of whether public sport and entertainment providers are required to make their websites accessible to users with disabilities in order to comply with Title II of the ADA. While this issue is currently being debated in the courts as well as the public policy arena, meeting the online needs of customers with disabilities has become a priority for sport and entertainment providers. Title II of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by state and local governments. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has stated that a government agency must communicate with people with disabilities in a manner that is “as effective as” that provided to people without disabilities. The three prongs for determining whether the communication is “effective” are: “timeliness of delivery, accuracy of the translation, and provision in a manner and medium appropriate to the significance of the message and the abilities of the individual with the disability” (Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines, Sec. 4.34). Despite relatively few judicial decisions on this issue, there is a growing consensus in the conclusion that Title II of the ADA applies to government web sites (National Council on Disability, 2003). These judicial decisions will be analyzed along with the recent decision in Access Now v. Southwest Airlines (2002) in order to show the contrast between a Title II and Title III web accessibility claim. In addition, policy considerations in mandating Web access for users with disabilities will be examined.


Keyword(s): legal issues, sport management, technology

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