[Blindtlk] National Federation of the Blind Comments on Federal Court Ruling on U.S. Currency

[David Andrews]

         National Federation of the Blind Comments


on Federal Court Ruling on U.S. Currency




Views Effort as Dangerously Misguided



Baltimore, Maryland (November 29, 2006): The 
National Federation of the Blind, the largest 
organization of blind persons in America and 
known as the voice of the nation's blind, 
criticized as dangerously misguided a federal 
court ruling saying that the design of U.S. 
currency discriminates against the blind.



Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National 
Federation of the Blind, said: "The blind need 
jobs and real opportunities to earn money, not 
feel-good gimmicks that misinform the public 
about our capabilities.  Blind people transact 
business with paper money every day.  This ruling 
puts a roadblock in the way of solving the real 
problem, which is the seventy percent 
unemployment rate among working-age blind 
Americans that severely limits our access to 
cash.  The ruling will do nothing to alleviate 
that situation; in fact, it seriously endangers 
the ability of the blind to get jobs and 
participate fully in society.  It argues that the 
blind cannot handle currency or documents in the 
workplace and that virtually everything must be 
modified for the use of the blind.  An employer 
who believes that every piece of printed material 
in the workplace must be specially designed so 
that the blind can read it will have a strong 
incentive not to hire a blind person."



Maurer went on to enumerate the real needs for 
access to information by the blind and made a 
distinction between those needs and the issue of 
identifying currency.  "Access to information of 
all kinds, such as that contained on Internet Web 
sites and in the press, is certainly critical to 
the ability of the blind to become productive 
members of society.  Blind students need 
educational materials in Braille and other 
alternative formats so that they can prepare for 
employment and ultimately earn an income for 
themselves and their families.  Given the urgent 
need for access to the kind of information that 
is required for success in America's information 
economy, the matter of identifying the 
denominations of paper bills is of relatively little concern."



Blind people traditionally identify paper 
currency by folding bills of different 
denominations in different ways.  "In reality, 
blind people do not routinely find that we have 
been short-changed," Maurer commented.  Machines 
are readily available to identify paper money for 
blind people who run businesses or handle large 
amounts of cash.  "Essentially, the United States 
Treasury has been ordered by the courts to come 
up with a solution for a nonexistent problem," Maurer said.



The National Federation of the Blind believes 
that with training and opportunity, blind people 
can compete in the world with only minor 
modifications.  The American Council of the 
Blind, which brought the lawsuit against the 
United States Treasury, promotes the view that 
the blind are unable to compete unless the world 
is modified dramatically and specifically for 
blind people, and that the blind must be made 
objects of care and pity rather than equal participants in society.



John G. Paré Jr.
Director of Public Relations
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland  21230
Telephone:  (410) 659-9314, ext. 2371
Cell phone:  (410) 913-3912
Fax:  (410) 685-5653
Email:  jpare at nfb.org