ADA Compliance and Title II Requirements

Overview

The CUNY School of Public Health is committed to ensuring that all students have equitable access to educational programs and services. As a public institution, CUNY SPH is required to comply with federal accessibility regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including ADA Title II, which applies to public colleges and universities.

These requirements have important implications for course design, instructional materials, and online learning environments. This page provides faculty with an overview of ADA compliance, what ADA Title II requires, and what these regulations mean for teaching at CUNY SPH.

Why Accessibility is Everyone’s Responsibility

Creating accessible content opens doors to transformative learning experiences. When we embrace accessibility in education, we unlock the full potential of every student and enrich our entire learning community. Accessible content is also important to faculty, staff, and assistants who share information with each other across various platforms. Each accessible document, presentation, or resource we create strengthens the educational experience for everyone, whether they’re visual learners, auditory processors, or hands-on discoverers.

By making accessibility a natural part of our teaching and content creation, we:

Inspire innovation in teaching and learning methods
Empower students to learn in ways that work best for them
Foster an environment where diverse learning styles flourish
Create flexible resources that adapt to different needs and preferences
Build a foundation for lifelong learning and success

The Impact of Inaccessible Content

Consider what happens when content isn’t accessible:

An individual who is blind cannot access a PDF that isn’t properly formatted for screen readers
A deaf individual misses crucial information in video lectures without captions
An individual with dyslexia struggles with dense text without proper formatting and structure
An individual with ADHD finds it difficult to focus on poorly organized content
An individual with motor disabilities cannot navigate through poorly structured digital materials

These barriers don’t just affect students with disabilities—they impact everyone’s learning experience. An individual trying to watch a video in a noisy environment, someone learning English as a second language, or a visual learner all benefit from captions and transcripts.

Who This Applies To

ADA accessibility requirements apply to all instructors—full-time, part-time, and adjunct—teaching any credit-bearing course, including:

Fully online courses
Blended or hybrid courses
Face-to-face courses that use digital instructional materials

What Is Required

Federal accessibility regulations require that all public colleges and universities ensure their websites and digital content conform to WCAG 2 accessibility standards. At CUNY SPH, this includes:

All Brightspace course sites
All instructional materials that are provided to students

When These Requirements Take Effect

Updated federal accessibility regulations under ADA Title II take effect on April 24, 2026. Faculty are encouraged to begin aligning course materials with accessibility standards now so that students experience more accessible courses well before the deadline.

What Is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. The ADA requires institutions to ensure that individuals with disabilities have equal access to programs, services, and activities.

In higher education, this includes access to instructional content, learning platforms, and course materials, whether delivered in person or online.

What Is ADA Title II?

ADA Title II applies specifically to public entities, including public colleges and universities. Under Title II, public institutions must ensure that all programs, services, and activities are accessible to individuals with disabilities.

This requirement includes academic programs and instructional materials and emphasizes proactive accessibility—designing courses and content to be accessible from the outset, rather than addressing barriers only after issues arise.

What ADA and Title II Mean for Faculty

Faculty play a critical role in ensuring accessibility through course design and instructional practices. ADA compliance is not limited to accommodations; it also involves creating learning environments where materials are usable by all students.

Expectations in Courses

Faculty are expected to take reasonable, documented steps to make course content accessible, including:

Using accessible formats for core course materials, such as syllabi, readings, slides, and assignments
Ensuring required videos are accurately captioned and reviewed for accuracy
Providing meaningful text alternatives for instructional images, such as charts, graphs, diagrams, and visual content
Using clear structure in Brightspace and documents, including proper headings, lists, tables, and descriptive link text

Addressing high-impact accessibility issues identified through Brightspace accessibility tools

What Faculty Can Do Now

Faculty are expected to take reasonable, documented steps to make course content accessible, including:

Using accessible formats for core course materials, such as syllabi, readings, slides, and assignments
Ensuring required videos are accurately captioned and reviewed for accuracy
Providing meaningful text alternatives for instructional images, such as charts, graphs, diagrams, and visual content
Using clear structure in Brightspace and documents, including proper headings, lists, tables, and descriptive link text

Addressing high-impact accessibility issues identified through Brightspace accessibility tools

Faculty are encouraged to begin taking proactive steps to align course materials and instructional practices with ADA Title II accessibility requirements. Early action helps ensure equitable access for students and reduces the need for retroactive remediation.

Key Actions to Prioritize

Faculty may begin by focusing on materials students use most frequently, including:

Course syllabi
Required reading packets
Weekly modules
Major assignment guidelines

Priority actions include:

Captioning required course videos and reviewing captions for accuracy
Fixing inaccessible core documents, particularly PDFs
Adding alternative text to instructional images
Improving document and course structure using proper headings and lists
Reviewing color contrast and text size for readability
Addressing critical accessibility issues flagged by Brightspace tools

Using the 3Rs Framework

Faculty may find it helpful to organize accessibility work using the 3Rs Framework, a commonly used approach for reviewing instructional materials:

Retire: Remove content that is no longer necessary, accurate, or actively used.
Replace: Substitute inaccessible materials with accessible alternatives, such as accessible documents or web-based content.
Remediate: Improve existing materials by adding accessibility features such as alternative text, proper headings, captions, or structural tags.

Source: Use the Accessibility 3Rs Framework | Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA)

Accessibility Training and Professional Development

CUNY SPH and CUNY Central are offering a range of accessibility-focused trainings during the Spring semester to support faculty in meeting ADA Title II requirements and strengthening inclusive course design practices.

These trainings are intended to help faculty:

Understand federal accessibility requirements and institutional expectations
Design and revise course materials with accessibility in mind
Identify and address common accessibility barriers in digital content
Use available tools and resources to support accessible teaching and learning

Information about upcoming workshops, webinars, and training opportunities will be shared as sessions become available via email.

Accessibility Efforts at CUNY SPH

CUNY SPH is actively working to support accessibility and inclusive design through:

Adoption of course design and quality assurance standards
Integration of accessibility tools within Brightspace
Accessibility-focused workshops, webinars, and trainings

Ongoing efforts to strengthen digital accessibility across academic programs

Training and Resources

CUNY SPH encourages faculty to continue building accessibility knowledge and skills through available training opportunities focused on digital accessibility and inclusive course design.

Information about accessibility training, guidance, and support services will continue to be shared as resources become available.

YouTube Channel for Recordings of all Webinars:

Resources to Use Now:

Download the digital accessibility fundamentals checklist PDF to help you keep track of the core principles of accessibility while creating and editing digital resources

Digital Accessibility Fundamentals Checklist

Ongoing efforts to strengthen digital accessibility across academic programs

Word Documents

Use uniform and hierarchical headings to structure the document
Use the simplest table configuration possible, and only use tables when needed
- Tables are best for data, not layout
Use link text that describes the destination of the link
Use the editing toolbar to create numbered or bulleted lists (instead of using the Tab key to format lists)
Use Microsoft Word’s built-in accessibility checker

PowerPoint Presentations

Give each slide a unique title and place the title within the slide (not above or below it)
Use sans serif fonts like Red Hat or Arial
Avoid content-heavy slides and use at least 1.5 line spacing
Include alternative text descriptions on all images
Use strong contrast between text and background colors
Make sure slide content can be read in the correct order
Learn more about accessible PowerPoint presentations on Microsoft’s website

Google Docs and Slides

Use uniform and hierarchical headings to structure the document. How to add headings to a Google Doc
Use simple tables to display data (and not to structure your document or slide)
Use link text that describes the destination of the link
Use the editing toolbar to create numbered or bulleted lists (instead of using the Tab key to format lists). How to add a numbered list or bulleted list
For step-by-step instructions, refer to Google’s guide on how to make your document or presentation more accessible

PDF documents

Start with an accessible document before converting to PDF
Learn how to create accessible PDFs
Follow Adobe’s guide on PDF accessibility
Scanned images of text are not accessible
- If you must use a scanned document, it should not have highlights, underlines, binding shadows or clipped lines.
- Scanned PDFs cannot be tagged unless you use optical character recognition (OCR) to recognize text first.

Adobe InDesign Files

Use live text and use styles to tag: Paragraphs, characters, objects
Ensure logical reading order: Control the stacking order of elements and the order of the articles
Captions, graphics, images: Add alt text to images, “artifact” decorative items, and anchor captions, sidebars, decorative items, and frames
Tables: Update “header and footer setup” to “repeat header row” for the top row of a table
Test your work: Make PDFs as you design to be sure the content is flowing correctly

Adopted from the University of Wisconsin’s Accessible Content: A Shared Learning Responsibility website.

CUNY Central Resources and Videos

In addition to campus-based training opportunities, faculty are encouraged to review the CUNY-wide guidance on accessibility in Brightspace. This resource provides practical information on accessibility expectations, tools available within Brightspace, and institutional support related to accessible course design and instructional materials.

CUNY Accessibility in Brightspace

Accessibility Support

Faculty, staff, and members of the CUNY SPH community who have questions about accessibility, ADA compliance, or ADA Title II requirements may contact the appropriate campus office for guidance and support.

For questions related to disability accommodations:

Office of Accessibility Services – CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy

Office of Online Learning for Brightspace Support:
Email: OLhelp@sph.cuny.edu