EdLaw
ADA Title II Web and Mobile Accessibility Rule (28 CFR Part 35, Subpart H)
The Department of Justice rule requiring state and local government entities — public school districts included — to make their web content and mobile apps conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Adopted 24 April 2024 (AG Order No. 5919-2024, 89 FR 31320, effective 24 June 2024); the compliance dates were extended by AG Order No. 6742-2026 (91 FR 20912, 20 April 2026) to 26 April 2027 for public entities with a population of 50,000 or more and 26 April 2028 for smaller entities and special district governments (§35.200(b)).
The load-bearing phrase for vendors: the duty covers web content and mobile apps a public entity "provides or makes available, directly or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements" (§35.200(b)(1)) — a district cannot discharge it without conformance from its EdTech suppliers, which is why WCAG 2.1 AA clauses are appearing in US district contracts now, ahead of the deadlines.
Applicability to EdTech
- Vendor-hosted portals and apps used by districts are in scope through the "arrangements" language (§35.200(b)); the technical bar is WCAG 2.1 Level A + AA as incorporated by reference in §35.104.
- The exceptions are narrow and content-based (§35.201): archived web content, preexisting conventional electronic documents (unless currently used to apply for/access services), third-party content the entity doesn't control, individualized password-protected documents, preexisting social media posts.
- Conforming alternate versions are permitted only where technical/legal limitations prevent direct conformance (§35.202); equivalent facilitation allows alternative designs providing substantially equivalent or greater accessibility (§35.203).
- Minimal-impact noncompliance is tolerated only where it would not affect use "in a manner that provides substantially equivalent timeliness, privacy, independence, and ease of use" (§35.205).
- The general fundamental-alteration / undue-burdens defence is built into §35.200(b) itself.
Contents
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
| DEFINITIONS.md | 28 CFR §35.104 — Title II definitions incl. WCAG 2.1, web content, mobile application |
| REQUIREMENTS.md | §§35.200–35.203 — the WCAG 2.1 AA duty and dates, exceptions, alternate versions, equivalent facilitation |
| DUTIES-AND-COMPLIANCE.md | §§35.204–35.205 — duties, minimal-impact noncompliance |
Key obligations at a glance
- WCAG 2.1 Level A + AA conformance for web content and mobile apps by 26 April 2027 (population ≥ 50,000) or 26 April 2028 (smaller/special districts) (§35.200(b)).
- The duty travels through procurement — content "made available … through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements" counts (§35.200(b)).
Enforcement
DOJ enforcement and private actions under the ADA's existing Title II machinery (28 CFR Part 35 Subpart F; not extracted). No new penalty regime was created by the web rule.
Licence
The corpus reproduces 28 CFR § 35.104 and §§ 35.200–35.205 (Department of Justice) verbatim from the eCFR, published by the Office of the Federal Register and the Government Publishing Office. It is a work of the United States Government. 17 U.S.C. § 105(a) (govinfo, United States Code 2024 edition, title 17 § 105, read 2026-10-01) provides: "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
The Government Publishing Office's Public Domain & Copyright Notice (govinfo.gov/about/policies, read 2026-10-01) adds: "By virtue of the foregoing, public documents can generally be reprinted without legal restriction. However, Government publications may contain copyrighted material which was used with permission of the copyright owner." It also says that "whenever a work is published consisting predominantly of work of the U.S. Government, the copyright notice (if any) must identify those parts of the work in which copyright is claimed per 17 U.S.C. § 403." WCAG 2.1, which §§ 35.200 and 35.202 incorporate by reference, is a W3C document under its own terms; the corpus names and links it but reproduces none of its text.
Conditions: none attach to the text itself. The one formal point is § 403: if the public pages ever carry a copyright notice, it must identify the parts in which copyright is claimed (the corpus's own curation) and not cover the reproduced federal text. The corpus names the source in its Sources section and in each fact document's {.meta} provenance lines, and its Meta section describes what it changed (anchors added, nothing reworded).
Related
- Section 504 / Section 508 — the companion accessibility duties districts cite alongside Title II
- FERPA — the privacy companion in the same district contracts
- EU Web Accessibility Directive — the EU public-sector analogue (EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA)
- WCAG — WCAG 2.1 as published 05 June 2018, the edition § 35.104 incorporates, reproduced in WCAG-2-1.md