Accessible materials for all

Jeff Thompson, past president of the Minnesota Association of Blind Students, would like the same access to collegiate materials as all other students, but that isn’t always the case.

“If it’s available to others, it should be available to us as well,” he said.

Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) sponsors HF3752, which would require publishers and all Minnesota higher education institutions to provide blind and other eligible students with accessible education materials when it does so for other students. Within 10 days of a request, publishers would be required to provide the school or student with the material in a preferred format.

It would also require the Office of Higher Education to adopt guidelines for suspending publishers failing to comply, provide a complaint registration process and develop a list of third party transcribers.

The bill was held over March 13 by the House Higher Education and Work Force Development Policy and Finance Division for possible inclusion in its omnibus bill.

“Currently, institutions and services, such as our communications center at Minnesota State Services for the Blind, as well as institutions of higher education, are bearing the burden of making instructional materials accessible, often at considerable taxpayer expense,” said Jennifer Dunnam, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. She said existing law requires accessibility, but does not specify how it must be done.

Some publishers already do this because of laws in other states; however, the industry has concerns about the bill, including that they may not have the right to distribute versions of their publications in more than one format, such as audio rights to their books.

Elizabeth Delfs, vice-president and senior counsel for Pearson Education, said her company already distributes about 10,000 such files every year across the country. “There are more than 10 states now that do have laws on the books. However, Minnesota’s law would be the most extreme, as it is proposed here.”

A companion bill, SF3514, sponsored by Sen. Kathy Sheran (DFL-Mankato), awaits action by the Senate Higher Education Committee.