Associated Press
May 21, 2008
WASHINGTON
Close your eyes, reach into your wallet and try to distinguish between a $1 bill and a $5 bill. Impossible? It's also discriminatory, a federal appeals court says.
Since all paper money feels pretty much the same, the government is denying blind people meaningful access to the currency, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled yesterday. The decision could force the Treasury Department to make bills of different sizes or print them with raised markings or other distinguishing features.
The American Council of the Blind sued for such changes, but the government has been fighting the case for about six years.
The U.S. acknowledges that the current design hinders blind people, but it argues that they have adapted. Some rely on store clerks to help, some use credit cards and others fold certain corners to help distinguish between bills.
"I don't think we should have to rely on people to tell us what our money is," said Mitch Pomerantz, the Council of the Blind president.
The council's director of advocacy and government affairs, Eric Bridges, who is blind himself, said he has to trust store clerks and others to identify his bills for him. He then folds them in different ways to distinguish different denominations in his wallet.
"We rely upon the kindness of strangers and the truthfulness of strangers to indicate to us what denominations they are handing back to us," he said.
Many countries, including Canada, Australia and Japan, have incorporated accommodations for those with impaired or no vision. Bills can be of different size or shape or incorporate texture such as ridges. The Euro has some of these features as well.
Technology such as bill readers can be expensive, not very accurate and require users to carry them around.
"There's no reason why we should have to go out and buy a piece of technology to allow us to go out and use our money," Bridges said.
The court ruled 2-1 that such adaptations were insufficient under the Rehabilitation Act. The government might as well argue that there's no need to make buildings accessible to wheelchairs because handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask passers-by for help, the court said.
"Even the most searching tactile examination will reveal no difference between a $100 bill and a $1 bill. The secretary has identified no reason that requires paper currency to be uniform to the touch," Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote for the majority.
Not all blind people agree that U.S. money should be changed. The National Federation of the Blind, in Baltimore, sided with the government and told the court that no changes were needed.
"Today's ruling ... is profoundly misguided and may unintentionally do real harm to blind Americans," the federation's president, Dr. Marc Maurer, said yesterday. "Hundreds of thousands of blind people use paper money every day without difficulty.
"We hope that this ruling will not have the unintended consequence of reinforcing society's misconception that blind people are unable to function in the world as it currently is."
Sun reporters Andrew Kipkemboi and Liz F. Kay contributed to this article.
Copyright C 2008, The Baltimore Sun