Court Rules That Paper Money Discriminates Against the Blind

[randomness]

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/20/AR2008052001117.html:

A federal appeals court today upheld a lower ruling that the U.S. currency system discriminates against blind people because bills of different denominations are the same size, shape and color and cannot be easily distinguished by the visually impaired.

The federal government must now decide whether to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Noteworthy details in the article: "[as of 2006] of more than 170 countries that print paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color regardless of denomination", and "the $1 bill...accounts for nearly half of all currency printed each year".

Comments

[emilymorgan.livejournal.com]

The linked article about the National Federation of the Blind's opposition is interesting too. An excerpt:

Many thoughtful leaders of the blind felt that the ACB's publicity stunt was damaging to the blind not only because it focused attention on a putative problem that did not exist but also that it would present the capacity of the blind in a false and misleading manner. If blind people are incapable of managing paper currency, how devastating is the limitation of blindness? We felt that this kind of presentation would lead to the assertion that blind people were incapable of participation in commerce without substantial alteration of the documents or papers involved in financial transactions. To give only one example, if a check is not tactilely identifiable, is the signature of a blind person upon it valid? The answer to the question might be that the signature is not. If this were to become the result of the argument that the paper currency discriminates against the blind, the effect upon blind people would be devastating indeed. We in the National Federation of the Blind have fought for the proposition that the signature of a blind person is valid upon such documents, whether they are tactilely identifiable or not. To assert anything else would be to challenge the right of blind people to engage in the commerce of the world.

[emilymorgan.livejournal.com]

Also, the NFB's Braille Monitory website is awesome. It has "Listen now (mp3)" links next to all the articles.

[emilymorgan.livejournal.com]

Monitor, sorry.

[quezz.livejournal.com]

I'm moving to Norway.

[elisaana.livejournal.com]

I wonder why there isn't a portable optical scanner to recognize the denomination from the corner of a bill. The problem is well-enough defined that it should be simple and inexpensive to solve.

[emilymorgan.livejournal.com]

There is. One of the arguments that the NFB makes is that it would be cheaper to buy every blind person one of those than to make changes to the currency handling apparatus.

[mmancuso.livejournal.com]

Oooh. This was a particularly interesting point. Gonna go read more, now. Thx.