Gus Alexiou
Contributor
I write about accessibility, inclusion and social justice.
Mar 24, 2023
This May the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will kickstart a rulemaking procedure some 13 years in the making aimed at codifying technical standards to assist public entities in complying with obligations to make their websites accessible to individuals with disabilities.
The original rulemaking process began under the Obama administration back in 2010 but was then abandoned before being withdrawn in 2017. Within this legal vacuum, akin to not having building codes for accessibility in the physical world – inaccessible online public services and inconsistent judicial rulings on how the Americans with Disabilities Act should be applied to the internet have led to confusion and exclusion alike.