You Own Digital Accessibility: The Law Behind the Job
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This article was written by a person and reviewed against accessibility.chat editorial standards. Treat it as research and education rather than legal advice. We prioritize primary sources and correct material errors.
Course content behind an LMS login is not private just because it's behind a login. That single misunderstanding drives more enforcement risk in this sector than anything else.
If your institution is public, Title II of the ADA and its web rule apply. If private, Title III applies instead — which has never had a web-specific regulation finalized, so the general nondiscrimination and effective-communication duties reach your digital services through guidance and case law rather than a dated rule. Section 504 attaches wherever federal funds flow, which for most institutions means everywhere.
That's already three regimes. There can be more. An institution taking health-agency research money, or running a covered health program, is a recipient under the federal health department's own disability rule (opens in new window), which sets its own dated WCAG requirements running on its own separate clock. Section 508 reaches you as a federal contractor through contract terms. And if you serve students in Europe, the European accessibility regime applies on top of all of it.
Map your institution against whichever of these actually reach you, with your counsel, before assuming any one summary — including this one — covers your specific situation.
Course content is covered content
Here's the misunderstanding I see most often, and it's expensive: the instinct that course materials sitting behind an LMS login are private, and therefore exempt. They're not. The password-protected exception in the web rule covers individualized documents about one specific person — a transcript, an individual billing statement. It does not cover course content that every enrolled student needs to participate.
The operative doctrine here has held for two decades: equally effective communication. Disabled students get access that's equally effective, equally integrated, and timely — not a separate, degraded, or delayed version of the same course.
What enforcement in this sector actually looks like
Reading a handful of real resolution agreements will teach you more about what's expected than any summary, including this one. The Department of Justice's consent decree with UC Berkeley (opens in new window) required WCAG 2.0 Level AA conformance across the university's online content — video, audio, course materials — with an independent auditor and manual testing, following an investigation into missing captions, alt text, and transcripts across free online courses and lectures. That instrument has run its course as a live order, but it remains the clearest available statement of what enforcement actually asks for: a designated coordinator, an audit, manual testing, deadlines organized by content class, and ongoing reporting.
DOJ and the Department of Education jointly issued guidance (opens in new window) reminding postsecondary institutions that Title II and Section 504 apply to their online services, including course platforms and content on third-party platforms like YouTube and podcast services — a reminder that content living outside your own domain doesn't stop being your obligation.
Students run on a semester clock, not yours
Both federal routes — Education's civil-rights office and DOJ — maintain active higher-ed dockets, and private litigation hasn't slowed either. What's distinct about this sector is the clock: a student's accommodation need runs on a semester, not an administrative timeline. An accommodation path that takes six weeks has functionally failed the student even in cases where it eventually succeeds, because the class has moved on without them.
None of this is legal advice, and it doesn't substitute for your counsel confirming which regimes reach your specific institution and its funding sources. If you want a fast read on how a specific course page or document actually measures up against WCAG 2.1 AA (opens in new window), ask Luke to check it. Our WCAG reference and methodology cover how we verify claims like these.
Next: your first ninety days — what to actually do with all of this, starting Monday.
Sources: DOJ-ED Joint Dear Colleague Letter on Online Accessibility (opens in new window) · UC Berkeley Consent Decree — DOJ Press Release (opens in new window) · 28 CFR Part 35, Subpart H — Web and Mobile Accessibility (opens in new window) · 34 CFR Part 104 — Section 504 Regulations (opens in new window)
About Jeff Fryer
Jeff Fryer spent years working kitchens before moving into ADA compliance work for local government. He writes from that experience -- direct, plainspoken, allergic to compliance theater. Contributing writer at accessibility.chat.
Jeff Fryer is a person, not one of the AI analyst lenses this site also publishes under. A named human is accountable for this article.
Specialization: Local government ADA compliance, contributed from direct field experience
Authorship and Editorial Process
Jeff Fryer wrote this article. AI was not used to draft it. It went through the same editorial checks as everything else published here.