No seriously, you really do need to caption your videos, the Harvard and MIT edition

Both MIT and Harvard have argued in court filings that they should not be required to provide closed captions for every video they create or host on their websites. After the institutions’ first attempt to dismiss the cases was denied, there was a yearlong attempt to reach a settlement out of court. When that attempt failed, the universities again moved to dismiss the cases.
Judge Katherine A. Robertson of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts largely rejected the universities’ second attempt to dismiss the cases. On March 28, Robertson denied the institutions’ pleas for the exclusion of their websites from Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Title III of the ADA prohibits disability discrimination by “places of public accommodation.” Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs that receive federal funding.

My eyes are stuck in the rolled position, and this time I think it’s permanent. I may be missing something, but the only exception for captions in WCAG SC 1.2.2 or its “Understanding” documentation is for content which is a transcript of the video or audio. I’m not deaf, and I’m getting tired of the excuses for lack of captions or transcriptions. How many times does some variation of “it’s not popular enough” or “I can’t afford it” or “it’s too hard” have to be tossed out? People and organizations will spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on audio or video equipment, only to then not caption or transcribe the content they create. And Harvard and MIT both are schools which could afford to transcribe their content, so hearing from them that they care about accessibility as long as it means they don’t have to caption all of their content is especially galling. I suppose if we’re talking about a podcast that’s just starting out, or a one-man shop, I could see why you might not come out of the gate with captions/transcripts. But even that only works to a point. If you’re pouring hundreds of dollars into a good headset or other higher-end audio equipment, then at some point you should be making arrangements for captions or transcriptions. It goes without saying that Harvard and MIT aren’t in the one-man-shop category.