It’s surprising that two such prestigious schools would miss something like this.

Tamar Lewin of the New York Times reports.

Harvard and M.I.T. Are Sued Over Lack of Closed Captions

Advocates for the deaf on Thursday filed federal lawsuits against Harvard and M.I.T., saying both universities violated antidiscrimination laws by failing to provide closed captioning in their online lectures, courses, podcasts and other educational materials.

“Much of Harvard’s online content is either not captioned or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” the complaint said, echoing language used in the M.I.T. complaint. “Just as buildings without ramps bar people who use wheelchairs, online content without captions excludes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.”

Jeff Neal, a spokesman for Harvard, said that while he could not comment on the litigation, Harvard expected the Justice Department to propose rules this year “to provide much-needed guidance in this area,” and that the university would follow whatever rules were adopted.

A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the university was committed to making its materials accessible to its students and online learners who are hearing-impaired, and included captioning in all new course videos and its most popular online courses.

The case highlights the increasingly important role of online materials in higher education. M.I.T. and Harvard have extensive materials available free online, on platforms like YouTube, iTunesU, Harvard@Home and MIT OpenCourseWare. In addition, the two universities are the founding partners of edX, a nonprofit that offers dozens of MOOCs, or massive open online courses, free to students around the world.