Pearson Education’s $150,000 disability discrimination settlement has put a less obvious employment liability exposure under scrutiny: what happens when the technology behind a workplace discrimination claim belongs to an outside vendor.
The educational publishing company agreed to settle a US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging that employees with visual impairments could not properly access online systems used for benefits, leave and workplace training.
Those platforms were provided by third parties, according to the EEOC. But outsourcing the technology did not remove Pearson’s responsibility to provide employees with reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the agency alleged.
That distinction extends the potential source of an employment practices liability claim beyond hiring, firing and other decisions made directly by managers. Increasingly digitized HR operations mean accessibility problems in benefits portals, training systems and other employee technology can also develop into discrimination allegations.
The EEOC said in announcing the settlement that Pearson’s online platforms contained technical issues that prevented employees using screen-reading software from receiving access comparable to employees without visual impairments.
Under a three-year consent decree, Pearson must hire a web accessibility consultant to audit its benefits platforms and training modules and make improvements where needed. It must also provide annual accessibility and reasonable accommodation training to human resources personnel, notify third-party vendors about accessibility requirements and report its compliance to the EEOC.
“When an employer uses online systems for benefits, leave or training, accessibility cannot be an afterthought,” Kimberly Cruz, regional attorney for the EEOC’s New York District, said. “Technology that shuts out employees with disabilities deprives them of equal opportunity both to succeed in the workplace and to access the benefits they have earned.”
The issue reaches beyond Pearson because of how much of the modern workplace technology stack now sits outside the employer itself.
Benefits administration, employee training, recruiting and other HR functions are routinely handled through external software providers. The EEOC’s position is that contracting out those functions does not necessarily contract out the employer’s accommodation obligations.
Its guidance for employees with visual disabilities specifically states that an employer is not excused from providing an accommodation because another entity has been contracted to provide training. The parties can allocate responsibility for accommodations through their contract, but the employer remains responsible for ensuring the employee receives the required accommodation.
That creates another dimension to vendor due diligence. A failure that begins with incompatible software or an inaccessible interface may ultimately surface as an employment discrimination claim against the organization using it.
The development comes as employment practices liability insurers are already grappling with claims emerging from employers’ growing reliance on technology.
Insurance Business recently reported that AI exclusions are beginning to appear in parts of the EPL market as litigation examines who bears responsibility when third-party employment technology contributes to allegedly discriminatory outcomes. While the Pearson dispute did not involve artificial intelligence, both issues raise a similar question around where responsibility sits when an employer relies on technology supplied by someone else.
Disability accommodation is also emerging against a backdrop of persistently high employment discrimination activity. The EEOC received 88,201 new discrimination charges in fiscal year 2025, following 88,531 the previous year.
Previous Insurance Business reporting on workplace discrimination claims has also identified failures around employee accommodations as a recurring source of EPL exposure.
The Pearson case adds technology procurement and accessibility to that discussion. As more employment functions move onto third-party platforms, the controls surrounding those vendors – including accessibility testing, contractual responsibilities and processes for responding when employees report problems – may increasingly sit alongside traditional HR practices when employment risks are assessed.
