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

[Mike Freeman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pare, John" <JPare at NFB.ORG>
To: <k7uij at panix.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:41 AM
Subject: National Federation of the Blind Comments on Federal Court Ruling 
on U.S. Currency




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

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