I hope the list moderator will indulge this one response to the interpretation of the Southwest Airlines case, copied at the end of this email, which is unduly pessimistic. I quote from the opening paragraph of the opinion written by the court of appeals for the 11th Circuit in that case:
The case centers around the inaccessibility of Southwest's web site, Southwest.com, to individuals like Mr. Gumson who are visually impaired and use the Internet through a special software program called a "screen reader." Some features of Southwest.com make it very difficult for the visually impaired to access using a screen reader. The plaintiffs claim that this limitation places Southwest.com in violation of Title III of the ADA, which requires privately operated "places of public accommodation" to be accessible to disabled individuals. Unfortunately, we are unable to reach the merits of this case, however, because none of the issues on appeal are properly before us.
That is the end of the paragraph.In short, little of significance to the ADA was decided in this case. We have a long way to go before these questions are resolved. More courts will rule, and congress may see fit to update the ADA. In addition, a higher international standard was rejected by the Bush Administration, a position that a future US government will surely change. Meanwhile, the Southwest Airlines decision is a lot less significant than the interpretation below suggests. Anyone interested might want to follow this link to a google search results page I just created:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22southwest+airlines%22%2C+nfbI will not pursue this thread any further, but I couldn't let the statements below stand unchallenged.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Kelly Pierce" <kpierce2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>For the record, the National Federation of the Blind did *not* sue Southwest Airlines. A cross-disability lawsuit mill in Florida called Access Now did. A federal court found that Southwest did not have to make its site accessible to people with disabilities. Further, blind people have no legal standing to sue Southwest or any other airline for that matter because they cannot use JAWS to purchase a ticket on the site. Air travel is not covered by the ADA but by a law called the Air Carrier Access Act, which does not offer an individual a private right of action.
Kelly
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