Hacker News Reader

Comment by kelukelugames | Hacker News Reader

Does it really need to come to litigation?

Nope. My apologies on behalf of our profession. This is probably just a shakedown -- it'll be cheaper to settle than it will be to defend against this lawsuit, so the game is to find a mistake that could plausibly fall afoul of the ADA and file away.

I hope they don't settle, to put it mildly. Few institutions are as well-equipped to combat trolls as Harvard.

I'm not sure this is a shakedown. The article mentions a previous case against Netflix that was settled with an agreement from Netflix to provide closed captioning in the near future.

The government provides mediation and reconciliation before these things go to court. I don't think anyone disagrees on adding captions. They probably went a head with the suit because they couldn't settle on a dollar figure.

Or not basically you don't know and just stating this must be shakedown because mediation exists. A pretty weak argument IMO.

I really hope this is not a shakedown because I believe asking MIT and Harvard to caption their courses is good. But I can't believe two leading universities would willfully ignore that request.

On a related note, EEOC has been tweeting a lot of disability settlements. https://twitter.com/EEOCNews

This isn't asking. This is forcing them to do something.

"This is probably just a shakedown -- it'll be cheaper to settle than it will be to defend against this lawsuit, so the game is to find a mistake that could plausibly fall afoul of the ADA and file away."

Unless I'm mistaken, the article says that National Association of the Deaf requested Harvard and MIT provide options accessible to the deaf on multiples occasions. They're seeking comparable materials for the hearing impaired, not millions of dollars.

That's always the request, but then when you admit fault, there are follow up lawsuits.

The National Association for the Deaf settled with Netflix in 2012. I couldn't find any follow up lawsuits since. It seems like an advocacy group just trying to make sure their members are represented.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com