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Re:Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Co... by barrkel on Thursday February 12, 2015 @09:02PM (#9042488)
If you follow the principle behind that logic, everybody should be blinded, deafened and crippled immediately after birth, reduced to the lowest common denominator, because otherwise they get an advantage because they weren't born blind, deafened, or crippled.

If a free lecture provides benefit to someone, but forcing it to be captioned causes it not to be released, would you be happy with that outcome? It's the same principle.

Re:Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Co... by aldordeah on Thursday February 12, 2015 @09:12PM (#9042522)
The population of deaf people in the USA is comparable to the population of Asian Americans (ranging from about 1% to 4% by state in both cases). If an organization gave a leg up in life to everyone except Asian Americans (e.g. by covering some share of the education costs), would you be happy with that outcome? Now this really is the same principle.
Re:Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Co... by szierk on Thursday February 12, 2015 @10:01PM (#9042663)
No, it's not, since it's equivalent covering of cost for Asian-Americans and everyone else. That's an example of straightforward discrimination. This is demanding that an organization put forward additional specialized effort at its own expense for materials it is releasing for free.

Whatever your opinion is here, they are not the same principle.

Re:Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Co... by loco5niner on Friday February 13, 2015 @02:45PM (#9046733)
No, it is not the same principle.