MORGANTOWN, W.Va (WDTV) – The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and its West Virginia base (NFBWV), along with two blind graduate students, have filed a federal lawsuit against West Virginia University’s Board of Governors. The lawsuit was filed on March 20th and alleges that WVU “systematically denies blind students equal access to its educational programs, services, and activities.” It further claims that WVU violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. According to the lawsuit, they have failed to provide blind students with accessible course materials, educational technology and field placement opportunities, which is required to complete their degrees. They say the university has also failed to provide auxiliary aids and services. The WVU students, Harold Thomas Rogers and Miranda Lacy, are in the university’s online Master of Social Work program and claim WVU has not accommodated their needs.
The lawsuit highlights several discriminatory barriers they have faced, including:
- Inaccessible Course Materials – WVU has provided textbooks in improperly formatted digital files such as PDFs that are improperly tagged for reading order and do not have image descriptions, making them unreadable with screen readers. This delays or denies access to assignments and forces blind students to rely on family members to read course materials aloud, since the university does not provide qualified readers. At one point, Ms. Lacy had to rely on her son, a minor at the time, to help with her assignments.
- Inaccessible Online Learning Platforms – WVU’s use of inaccessible software, such as Blackboard, VoiceThread, and Tevera, prevents blind students from navigating their coursework and logging required internship hours independently.
- Barriers to Field Placement Participation – The university has failed to ensure that internship placements, which it vets and which are required for graduation, provide accessible technology and reasonable accommodations. This has resulted in academic penalties for blind students stemming from the university’s failure to follow the law rather than any inability of the students to complete the requirements. As a result, Mr. Rogers in particular, who was an honors undergraduate student and is one of only twenty-three rural integrated behavioral health trainees in the country through a program funded by the United States Health Resources and Services Administration, will graduate a full two years after he originally expected to do so.
- Deliberate Indifference to Accessibility Concerns – Despite repeated complaints and requests for reasonable accommodations, as well as ample notice of its legal obligations, WVU has intentionally failed to take meaningful action to ensure equal access to its programs, services, and activities.
Mark Riccobono, the president of the National Federation of the Blind addressed the lawsuit within the NFB press release.
“These students enrolled at WVU to pursue careers dedicated to helping others, but instead they have been met with institutional barriers and unlawful discrimination that threaten their futures,” says Riccobono. “The university’s behavior is inexcusable, as its legal obligations are not new and it could have followed the lead of any number of other academic institutions with whom blind Americans have collaborated to institute systemic accessibility solutions. The National Federation of the Blind simply cannot and will not tolerate this deplorable conduct at WVU or anywhere else.”
NFB, Rogers and Lacy seek a court order that would require WVU to implement accessibility reforms, equal educational opportunities for blind students and compensation for any harm they’ve suffered.
On Tuesday, March 25th, 5News reached out to WVU for comment on the lawsuit, to which they replied, “We’re not commenting at this point in the process.”
Copyright 2025 WDTV. All rights reserved.