The Princeton Review is well known for its higher-education admission test guides (SAT, SAT, GMAT, LSAT) and its college and university rankings publication, but it also provides on-demand tutoring sessions and publishes study guides for professional certifications for professionals such as accountants and fraud examiners. It has agreed to provide closed captioning, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting services, transcripts and other accessibility tools for all of its digital courses and programs. This action was prompted by a complaint fielded by DREDF in early 2021 that alleged The Princeton Review was not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In February 2021, a demand letter was sent to The Princeton Review, which agreed to the request, and the matter was settled without going to court, DREDF Staff Attorney Ayesha Elaine Lewis wrote in an email to Government Technology Thursday.
“When we brought the issue to Princeton Review’s attention they were actually quite interested in collaborating to find a solution,” she wrote.
The demand letter prompted a series of discussions between The Princeton Review and the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), and both organizations officially announced the improvements in a news release this week.
“Test preparation services serve a critical purpose in enabling people to pursue higher education and professional careers, and such services need to be accessible to all to ensure equality and equity in those fields,” NAD CEO Howard Rosenblum said in a public statement. “The National Association of the Deaf is thrilled to announce that as a result of this agreement with The Princeton Review, their test-preparation services will now be more accessible to 48 million learners in the United States who are deaf, deaf-blind, deaf-disabled, hard of hearing and late-deafened.”
The Princeton Review CEO Joshua Park said he was happy to work with NAD on this issue.
“The Princeton Review began more than 40 years ago with a mission to help students achieve their educational goals, including supporting them in overcoming barriers,” he said in a public statement. “In service of that mission, Princeton Review employees collaborate on an ongoing basis to meet the needs of every student we instruct. We look forward to further enhancing the high quality of our service.”
According to the legal agreement signed in July and August by representatives of the three parties involved, The Princeton Review will make closed captioning and ASL options available on all of its digital content and interactive tutoring services within three months. The agreement also stipulates that, once those options are in place, The Princeton Review will respond to any requests or questions from hearing-impaired customers within four business days. Additionally, The Princeton Review will pay DREDF $60,000 to compensate it for the time spent on this matter and additional time that will be spent monitoring compliance.
Representatives from the DREDF and CurbCutOS recently indicated that they intend to encourage or even pressure schools to improve digital access to e-books, learning management systems and websites for people with impaired vision, hearing or cognition. Educators need to do a better job assessing student needs and taking inventory of what tools they already have and what is needed, both organizations said.
Still, The Princeton Review’s actions mark a big step in digital accessibility for high school and college students. According to its website, the organization served 1.6 million students in 2017 and averages about 5,000 on-demand tutoring sessions per school night.
Gerry Buckley, president and vice dean of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology, applauded the announcement. The NTID identifies itself as the only college in the world that specializes in helping deaf and hard-of-hearing students to earn degrees in a wide range of business and technical fields.
“RIT/NTID applauds the commitment to expanded access via captioning and ASL interpreting services being instituted by The Princeton Review,” Buckley wrote in an email Friday to Government Technology. “As this nation continues its movement toward a more inclusive society, efforts such as this assure that deaf citizens are not left behind.”
