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]

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.