Section 508 Accessibility Statements and Complaint Processes
After reviewing many of the topics as well as the memos on 508, I noticed that many agencies' civil rights organizations are not involved in this process or at least do not appear to be. Section 508 requires a complaint process that generally mirrors an agency's 504 process unless it involves a Federal employee where it could be a Section 501 complaint. In both cases, an agency's civil rights organization is responsible ...more »
After reviewing many of the topics as well as the memos on 508, I noticed that many agencies' civil rights organizations are not involved in this process or at least do not appear to be.
Section 508 requires a complaint process that generally mirrors an agency's 504 process unless it involves a Federal employee where it could be a Section 501 complaint. In both cases, an agency's civil rights organization is responsible for processing these types of cases (501 or 504).
After a brief survey of Fed. agency sites, some have accessibility statement links and some do not have them at all on their home pages. Ones that do not - http://www.dol.gov/, http://www.state.gov/ , http://www.ed.gov/
First, for reasons of transparency, each Fed. agency should have link on their home page to an clear accessibility statement. As far the content of these statements that are currently on up on Fed. agencies' sites, some organizations state that a person with a 508 issue is to contact the 508 Coordinator while others are to contact the civil rights office. In other cases, many accessibility statements do not have any contact information at all as to who contact in cases of 508 issues.
Again, based on transparency, each accessibility statement should contain a link as to who to contact. I would recommend that it be a Fed. agency's civil rights organization because most if not all civil rights organizations are responsible for 504/501 complaints. It is important to note that if it is a Federal employee who has a 508 issue, it may be a 501 complaint, while if it is member of the public the agency's Section 504 complaint process.
So I would propose that all Fed. agencies have links to accessibility statements from the home pages and these statements should have a way to contact that person or organization responsible for processing 508 complaints.
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