ADA Title II Regulations

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by public entities, which include state and local governments and their departments, agencies, and instrumentalities. It ensures that individuals with disabilities have equal access to all services, programs, and activities provided by these entities.

New Regulations Overview

In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice published updated regulations clarifying how Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to digital content at public colleges and universities. The new rules significantly expand digital accessibility requirements for the University at Buffalo as a public institution, impacting all university units and functions, including academic, administrative, athletic, and research. The revised rule mandates that all web content and mobile apps (digital content) must:

Be readily accessible to and useable by people with disabilities upfront; and
Meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards—the most widely accepted global benchmark for digital accessibility—by April 24, 2026.

The revised regulations:

Apply to all public-facing, student-facing, and employee-facing content, whether provided directly by the university or through third parties.
Apply to all faculty-created (digital) course materials including syllabi, readings, videos, slides, UB Learns pages, online assessments and more.
Cover learning management systems like Brightspace.
Require captions, readable documents, alternative text for images, and accessible navigation.
Allow limited exceptions (e.g., for archived or legacy content not currently used for active instruction).

Meeting these new requirements necessitates a fundamental culture shift—from a reactive approach, responding to individual accommodation requests—to proactively ensuring all digital content is accessible from the start. While the compliance deadline of April 24, 2026, is critical, our obligations under the ongoing 2020 resolution agreement with the Office for Civil Rights remain. We must continue meeting these requirements while working to fully integrate accessibility into our practices, reflecting our shared values of inclusion that help define UB.

ADA Title II Resources

U.S. Justice Department Webinar

The following webinar from the Department of Justice provides a summary of the rule and introductory information about the rule’s requirements.

Broad coverage of digital materials

The new regulations apply broadly to web content, which is anything viewable via a web browser, including conventional electronic documents and mobile apps. Digital content that the university provides or makes available, directly or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements, must be accessible. Importantly, this also encompasses all course-related materials, including those within Brightspace and other documents behind a login.

Examples of the types of digital content covered by the new regulations include, but are not limited to, the following:

Websites and web applications such as university websites, departmental sites, and faculty pages, including both public sites and websites or webpages behind a login; online portals for student services, registration, and financial transactions; online research applications; library databases; web-based learning management systems such as Brightspace.
Mobile apps for accessing course materials, submitting assignments, or participating in forums.
Digital documents and materials such as PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and Word documents that are used for instructional or informational purposes; e-books and academic journals available online.
Multimedia content such as online video lectures, webinars, and instructional videos; audio recordings and podcasts; live streamed and recorded events and conferences.
E-learning and online courses such as online course content and platforms; web-based textbooks; web-based and mobile tools for submitting assignments, participating in discussions, and taking exams; video conferencing tools used for virtual classrooms.

What does this mean for faculty and staff?

Campus compliance with the ADA is a shared responsibility and faculty members play an important role in the university’s efforts by providing accessible course materials and digital content.

As the creators and stewards of course content, you have a vital role to play in ensuring students with disabilities aren’t excluded. Small actions—like writing descriptive link text or uploading a tagged PDF—can remove major barriers for students.