WATA Bulletin: Late Fall 2000
Contents:
- Windows 2000 offers new accessibility features
- FCC enacts rules to require audio descriptions of visual elements of some TV programming
- Legislative Update: ADA and the Supreme Court
- Calendar of Events
Windows 2000 offers new accessibility features
Sharmon Morris, M.S., Rehabilitation Counselor, University of Washington
Medical Center
Dagmar Amtmann M.A., Program Manager, UW Center for Technology and Disability
Studies
Microsoft Windows 2000, the powerful new operating system platform intended for business users, features several useful new accessibility tools to help people with disabilities configure and use computers quickly - without additional software and hardware. Accessibility features from earlier releases of the Windows operating system are also included.
(Windows 95/98 and previous versions of Windows NT have the standard accessibility features such as sticky, filter and toggle keys, described in the Summer 1998 issue of the WATA Bulletin, available online at http://wata.org/pubs/articles/win98.htm.)
Utility Manager brings all of the Windows 2000 Accessibility programs - On-Screen Keyboard, Narrator and the previously introduced Magnifier - together in one place. They appear along with the Accessibility Wizard and the Utility Manager in the expanded Windows 2000 Accessibility menu, which can be accessed through the Accessibility Wizard or Utility Manager. You can quickly check the status of an individual program, or start and stop any or all of them. If you have administrator-level access, you can assign programs to start when Windows 2000 starts.
Magnifier is a display utility that makes the computer screen more readable for people with relatively minor visual impairments. Magnifier creates a separate window that displays a magnified portion of the screen. The magnification level of text and images in the magnification window, as well as the size and location of the magnification window, can be adjusted. Screen colors can be inverted.
On-Screen Keyboard displays a virtual keyboard on the computer screen that enables people with limited use of their hands to type by using an alternative mouse form (such as joystick, infrared pointing device, trackball or trackpad). On-Screen Keyboard may be helpful for computer users who find it difficult to type or cannot type using a regular keyboard, but are able to use a mouse or a switch to select the keys.
Narrator is a text-to-speech utility for people with blindness, low vision, or low literacy skills. Narrator reads text displayed on the screen, such as the contents of the active window, menu options, or text that has been typed. Narrator is designed to work with Notepad, WordPad, Control Panel programs, Internet Explorer, and some parts of Windows 2000 Setup. Narrator offers a number of options to customize what is read and when it is read. For instance, you can hear new windows, menus, or shortcut menus read aloud when they are displayed, hear typed characters read aloud, and adjust the speed, volume, and pitch of the computer voice.
Information on these and other accessibility features in Microsoft Windows products and step-by-step guides on how to install, customize and use them, is on the Web at http://www.microsoft.com/enable/.
FCC enacts rules to require audio descriptions of visual elements of some TV programming
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopts rules that enforce Title IV ADA accessibility guarantees in telecommunication services.
On Sept. 11, 2000, the FCC finalized rules requiring larger broadcast stations, cable programming providers and satellite programming providers in the top 25 television markets to attach "video description" to at least 50 hours per calendar quarter (approximately 4 hours per week) of their prime time and children’s programming. These provisions take effect April 1, 2002.
The purpose of the rules is to improve accessibility of television programming to people with visual disabilities and to children with learning disabilities. A description of key visual elements would be inserted into natural pauses in the audio portion of the broadcast. The rules cover half of US households with TVs (through NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox) and half of cable subscribers, in addition to 12 million subscribers of Direct Broadcast Satellite systems. Regardless of size, all broadcast stations, cable providers and satellite providers are required to pass through all video description attached to programming provided to them, if they are technically able to do so.
In addition, these stations and providers must alert members of their audience with disabilities to local emergency information, whether through description or audio alerts. This provision takes effect as soon as approved by the Office of Management and Budget.
These provisions will be enforced by the FCC. Private citizens, although able to make complaints to the FCC, will not be able to initiate private lawsuits to enforce these rules. These rules will not be enforced in cases where they would impose an "undue burden" (i.e. significant difficulty or expense) on stations and providers.
For more information, see the FCC’s website at http://www.fcc.gov/cib/dro/video-description.html.
Legislative Update: ADA and the Supreme Court
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide two cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act during the 2000-2001 term. These cases are University of Alabama v. Garrett and PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin.
The Garrett case is a consolidation of two employment discrimination cases brought under Titles I and II of the ADA. This legal update describes the Garrett case. (The Martin case concerns the request of a golfer that he be allowed to use a golf cart during a PGA tournament as a reasonable accommodation under Title III of the ADA. It will be described in the next Bulletin.)
The Garrett case originated as complaints of employment discrimination on the basis of disability by two former employees of the University of Alabama. In district court, the state of Alabama argued that the cases should be dismissed because the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provided states sovereign immunity from prosecution. The court agreed and the employees appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Circuit Court disagreed with the lower court decision and ruled that state governments could be sued under the ADA, because Congress had explicitly abrogated states’ 11th Amendment sovereign immunity. Alabama appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court.
This case is critically important: it asks the Court to decide whether states can be sued for violating the ADA. The specific issue is whether Congress had constitutional authority under the 14th Amendment to apply the ADA’s statutory requirements to state governments, thereby allowing a state to be sued for ADA violations. If the Court rules Congress overstepped its authority, individuals may not be able to enforce their Title I or Title II rights against state governments.
Garrett is the latest in a series of recent cases challenging Congressional power to write laws regulating state government actions. In several cases the Court has ruled Congress did overstep its Constitutional authority, thereby restricting its ability to apply federal laws to the states. For example, last year the Court ruled that states could not be sued for employment discrimination under the Age in Employment Discrimination Act.
In support of the ADA, friend of the court briefs were submitted by President Bush (who signed the ADA into law in 1990), the ARC, the state of Minnesota (and 13 additional states including Washington), and a number of law professors. Hawaii wrote a brief in support of Alabama, as did the Association of State Correctional Administrators, and the Coalition for Local Sovereignty, among others.
The implications of a Supreme Court ruling that declares Congress does not have the authority to regulate state action under the ADA could be significant for assistive technology users and their advocates. If state governments are no longer covered by the ADA, they would not be required under that law to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in employment-related matters or provide reasonable modifications to services, programs or activities offered by the state.
State laws against discrimination are not being challenged in the Garrett case. Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, the protections offered by Washington State law would still provide protections for individuals with disabilities.
Oral arguments in the Garrett case were heard on October 11, 2000. A decision by the Court is expected sometime in the spring or summer of 2001.
Calendar of Events
"Technology and Persons With Disabilities." March 19-24, Los Angeles
The Center on Disabilities at California State University, Northridge hosts its 16th
annual international conference on assistive technologies. The keynote speaker is John
Hockenberry, award-winning international correspondent with "Dateline NBC."
Information: Center On Disabilities, CSUN, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, CA 91330-8340,
(818) 677-2578, or http://www.csun.edu/cod/.
RESNA 2001 Annual Conference. June 22-26, Reno, Nevada
RESNA 2001, sponsored by the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Society of North America, will bring together people who use, develop, manufacture and deliver assistive and rehabilitative technologies. Topic of the Annual Research Symposium is Telecommunications. Information: RESNA, 1700 North Moore Street, Suite 1540, Arlington, VA 22209-1903, (703) 524-6686, info@resna.org or http://www.resna.org/.
For calendar Updates, visit the Web at http://wata.org/calendar.htm
For references and more information, contact WATA at uwat@u.washington.edu or 800-841-8345.
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WATA Bulletin
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The WATA Bulletin is supported by grant H224A3006 from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education, to the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Olympia, WA.