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DUKE UNIVERSITY TO MAKE CAMPUS MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR PEOPLE

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Duke University has agreed to make its campus fully accessible to people with disabilities, under an agreement reached today with the Justice Department.

Today's out-of-court settlement resolves a complaint filed with the Justice Department alleging that a number of buildings and facilities on Duke's campus, which is located in Durham, North Carolina, were not accessible to people with mobility impairments. Under the agreement, Duke has agreed to make a broad range of programs more accessible to persons with disabilities including, academics, dining and living facilities, and social aspects of campus life.

"Making the overall college experience accessible is essential to providing equal access for college students with disabilities," said Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. "Duke University is setting an example that other schools should follow."

Title III of the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) requires privately owned places of public accommodation, including private colleges and universities, to remove architectural barriers to access where such removal is readily achievable and to modify policies, practices, and procedures when necessary to avoid discrimination. Under the agreement, Duke University has agreed to:

• modify elevators, entrances, counters, food service lines, telephones, and bathrooms throughout campus so they are accessible to persons with disabilities;
• create accessible circulation paths to, among and within university buildings and other facilities by among other things, repairing sidewalks and modifying hallways, doors, ramps, etc.;
• ensure that all programs and classes in which individuals with physical disabilities are enrolled are located in accessible spaces;
• modify shuttle bus route schedules to ensure that accessible buses run regularly and frequently on each route;
• make dormitory rooms fully accessible upon enrollment of students with disabilities until two percent of all dormitory rooms on campus are accessible;
• enlarge doorways in at least half of the rooms on floors with accessible rooms in 18 of 25 dormitories, so students using wheelchairs can visit friends like non-disabled students;

• provide accessible seating in the Cameron Indoor Stadium, and other assembly areas as well as access to stages and backstage areas around campus and assistive listening devices in assembly areas;
• provide accessible parking throughout campus;
• replace signs throughout campus so they can be read by people with vision impairments and so that people with mobility impairments are properly directed to accessible routes and spaces; and,
• pay $25,000 in civil penalties United States and $7,500 in compensatory damages to the complainant, a wheelchair user who graduated from Duke in 1997.

This is the first agreement the Justice Department has reached regarding widespread accessibility of a college or university.