US DOJ Says Kindle In Classroom Hurts Blind Students

angry tapir writes "Three US universities will stop promoting the use of Amazon.com's Kindle DX e-book reader in classrooms after complaints that the device doesn't give blind students equal access to information. Settlements with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Oregon, were announced Wednesday by the US Department of Justice. The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind had complained that use of the Kindle devices discriminates against students with vision problems."

Comments

benefit the few

[johncandale]

once again benefits for the many have been choked for benefits for the few.

I Can't Believe this, Colleges already bend over to do so much for blind students.

I've seen classes where they had a aid in the class to take chalkboard/teacher notes for the blind/deaf, even if the class only had one blind student. So they were commenting a whole man hour to benefit one student. Colleges tend to have a whole office staff for helping students with such disabilities, I'm sure if the book was not already in Braille, the college could get it transcribed.

The solution is simple:

[meburke]

Simply blind everybody. That will certainly make the playing field equal, right? This is too stupid for words! Students should be assessed (graded) on how well they master the material. People with different capabilities will acquire the the knowledge in different ways. Am I being discriminatory because I won't hire a blind person to work in a sawmill or as a logger? Real life occupations may also be better for people who can see (like loggers who don't want branches and trees on top of them).

I've read the original documents, and I can see where blind students may want to get as much of the same experience as sighted people, but the manner and outcome of the learning HAS to be different simply because they cannot experience the class in the same way.

Hey, I always wanted to be an Astronaut! Can I sue NASA into giving fat guys a break?

Re:Hmm, this seems illogical.

[Glock27]

Harrison Bergeron's world, are we there yet?

Keep supporting 0bama and his ilk, and we'll be there soon enough.

So far he's only pursuing the economic equivalent, but once that's done...