FOR RELEASE Contact: Jim Bradshaw
April 3, 1997 (202) 401-2310
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY OF EDUCATION RICHARD W. RILEY
On the establishment of the World Wide Web Accessibility Project
America's rush to the Information Superhighway risks leaving
behind a crucial element of our population -- our nation's 49
million persons with disabilities. The Internet has fast become
one of the great inventions of our lifetimes. Yet for some
citizens, this dazzling medium may offer about as much usefulness
as the Pony Express.
Many Web pages cannot be accessed by people who are blind or
have limited vision. Many home pages incorporate graphically-based
technology that limits the accessibility of individuals with
disabilities. Audio clips are of little use to those who are deaf
or hearing impaired.
To address these and other concerns, we are pleased to join
the National Science Foundation in contributing up to $800,000 for
the new World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative.
This effort will guide the development of industry-sponsored
specifications to make the Internet accessible to all. Exciting
possibilities like descriptive video, video captioning and
innovative input devices will be explored. The department
welcomes the opportunity through our National Institute on
Disability and Rehabilitation Research and the Office of Special
Education Programs to build on its long-term support of
rehabilitation engineering and accessibility.
Learning online must not become a new fault line in American
education, dividing the haves and have-nots. The Internet is the
blackboard of the future. This also applies to the increasing
role of the Internet in the workplace and as a means of regular
communication. All persons -- disabled and non-disabled --
deserve access to information that promotes excellence in
education, work and social understanding.
###
------- End of Forwarded Message
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:04 PST