A Wave of Disability-Lawsuit Threats Against Colleges May Have Receded

The letters to colleges’ chief legal officers started with a warning and ended with an offer some might have felt reluctant to refuse. Carlson Lynch Sweet Kilpela and Carpenter, a law firm based in Pittsburgh, said it represents "disabled individuals throughout the United States who access or attempt to access internet-based educational services," and it was contacting the addressees because their colleges’ web pages "are inaccessible to our clients," in violation of federal disability-rights laws. It attached the results of website analyses concluding that many of the colleges’ online pages failed to meet widely accepted accessibility standards.