Accessibility for the Disabled

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 23, 2020:

As we continue our important work directly related to COVID-19, the Federal Communications Commission will also continue our work confronting the longer-term challenges that have been highlighted by pandemic. In particular, at our upcoming meeting on April 23, we will be voting on major initiatives to expand wireless connectivity and further close the digital divide.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the January Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, January 30, 2020:

I'm sharing with my fellow commissioners a draft order that would establish the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a modern approach for connecting those hardest-to-serve corners of our country. At the FCC's January open meeting, we'll vote on this order—our biggest step yet to close the digital divide. The new Fund will provide up to $20.4 billion over the next decade to support the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in those parts of rural America that currently lack fixed broadband service that meets the Commission's baseline speed standards.

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Domino’s Pizza after a federal appellate court ruled that a blind customer can sue the chain under the Americans with Disabilities Act after he couldn’t fully use its website through screen-reading software. Domino’s had asked the Supreme Court to rule that the ADA didn’t apply to websites and apps, arguing the 1990 law predated the modern internet and that there were no firm rules businesses could comply with to make their online assets accessible.

Of the more than 56 million people in the US who have a disability, many haven't been able to afford service or have lacked the digital training to access the internet. The result is that Americans with disabilities are three times more likely than those without a disability to say they never go online. When compared with those who don't have a disability, disabled adults are roughly 20 percentage points less likely to say they subscribe to home broadband and own a traditional computer, a smartphone or a tablet.

A years-long legal battle between Domino's Pizza and a man who is blind named Guillermo Robles over whether the pizza chain is required by law to make its website accessible to the disabled could make it all the way up to the Supreme Court in 2019. Should the case go that far, its outcome could forever change the way the internet is regulated — and determine how accessible the internet will be in the future for the roughly 20% of Americans with a disability. Domino's is petitioning the Supreme Court to take up the case after a federal appeals court sided with Robles in 2016.