Public colleges, K-12 schools, local governments and other public institutions will have an extra year to make their digital materials fully accessible for people with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Many institutions had been racing, for at least two years, toward a deadline that was originally set for this Friday to comply with new federal accessibility guidelines updating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was a day disability rights advocates had been eagerly awaiting.
But just four days ahead of the deadline, the Justice Department overrode the original rule and said public entities serving 50,000 or more people will now have until April 26, 2027. Smaller public institutions will have until that date in 2028.
The Justice Department "overestimated the capabilities (whether staffing or technology) of covered entities to comply with the rule in the time frames provided," the DOJ said in its interim final rule.
"We are outraged," said Corbb O'Connor, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. The national organization, along with other disability rights organizations, has condemned the delay.
"Yet again, the blind have been told to wait to live on terms of equality," O'Connor said. He pointed out that despite the rule being recent, international standards for web accessibility have existed since 1999.
The Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) has joined the chorus in pushing back on the last-minute change. "AHEAD and its members have long anticipated clear and timely guidance that reflects current technologies, instructional models, and student needs," said Katy Washington, president of AHEAD.
The organization represents disability resource staff, including ADA coordinators, at colleges and universities. "Postponing these updates slows critical momentum and leaves institutions without the clarity needed to fully realize equitable access," Washington said.
Addressing a need for clear guidelines
Corbb O'Connor, who is blind, said the delay isn't just about waiting one extra year for accessibility. "We've been waiting nearly 36 years since the law that guaranteed these rights, the one that heralded a new era of access, was signed into law."
He is referring to Title II of the ADA, the 1990 law which has long promised accessibility to people with disabilities, including in the digital realm. But before this rule, the ADA didn't clearly lay out what accessibility had to look or sound like.
The new regulation, announced in 2024, aimed to change that by pointing institutions to a set of technical guidelines known as WCAG 2.1. It provided a clear checklist of accessibility requirements their web and mobile content had to meet.
That includes transcripts for audio clips, captioning for videos and making sure PDFs and other webpages are friendly with screen readers, an assistive technology blind people use to interpret visual content into audible speech.
"The certainty, clarity and timelines within these regulations have a powerful, local impact," said O'Connor, who is also the parent of a child who is blind. "Within minutes of meeting my son's elementary school principal for the first time, he knew the April 24, 2026 deadline."
Jennifer Mathis was at the Justice Department when the original rule was announced and helped craft it. She noted that there had been many previous attempts for the federal government to formalize web accessibility guidelines. And Mathis said that while the need for digital accessibility was loud and clear from people with disabilities, calls for clear guidelines also came from public institutions themselves.
"The whole point of this particular rule was to create certainty and clarity for everyone," Mathis said. "To delay the standards now, after 16 years and an incredibly thorough rulemaking process, is just mindless and cruel."
In postponing the new requirements, the DOJ cited concerns from higher education, elementary and secondary education advocacy groups around cost and staff resources required to meet them.
"Many districts are already financially stretched and operating in an environment where schools are asked to do more with less," said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, which primarily represents K-12 school superintendents.
AASA was one of the organizations that met with federal government officials to ask for a delay. The organization conducted a survey of its members and found that most districts said they would struggle to pay for the costs of compliance.
"The scope, pace, and unfunded nature of this requirement reflect a significant disconnect between federal expectations and the fiscal and human capital realities of local school systems," Pudelski said.
While a federal rule on digital accessibility may not be effective for at least another year, there have been a number of successful legal actions holding colleges and other institutions accountable for equal access to learning materials.
Edited by: Steve Drummond
Visual design and development by: LA Johnson
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