Treasury Dept Descriminates Agains Visually Impaired Washington Dc

Close your optics, reach into your wallet and try to distinguish between a $ane nib and a $v bill. Impossible? It'south as well discriminatory, a federal appeals court says.

Since all newspaper money feels pretty much the same, the government is denying blind people meaningful admission to the currency, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Excursion ruled yesterday. The decision could forcefulness the Treasury Department to make bills of dissimilar sizes or print them with raised markings or other distinguishing features.

The American Quango of the Blind sued for such changes, but the regime has been fighting the case for about six years.

The U.S. acknowledges the current design hinders blind people, just it argues that they have adapted. Some rely on shop clerks to help, some use credit cards and others fold certain corners to aid distinguish betwixt bills.

"I don't call back we should take to rely on people to tell us what our coin is," said Mitch Pomerantz, the Quango of the Blind president.

Others say they manage simply not e'er easily.

"When I pay for something and I get modify dorsum, I'g very slow and methodical. I'll ask, 'Is this the 10? Is this the 5? Is this the one?' " said Kim Charlson, the library managing director at the Perkins School for the Blind, which is Helen Keller's alma mater.

Some use electronic currency readers. But they can be expensive, and they sometimes accept problems with new $20 bills.

"It'due south slow," said Sam McClain, who manages a snack shop in a legislative office building most the Georgia Capitol. He has a currency reader but usually relies on the honesty of his customers. "Sometimes I have ten or 15 people in here, and I can't use it."

The court ruled 2-1 that such adaptations were bereft under the Rehabilitation Act. The government might as well argue that in that location'southward no need to brand buildings accessible to wheelchairs considering handicapped people tin 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 beak and a $1 bill. The secretary has identified no reason that requires paper currency to exist uniform to the bear on," Judge Judith Due west. Rogers wrote for the majority.

Courts don't determine how to blueprint currency. That'due south up to the Treasury Department, and the ruling forces the department to address what the courtroom chosen a discriminatory problem.

That could still take years. Simply since blindness becomes more than common with age, people in their 30s and 40s should know that, when they go older, "they will be able to identify their $one bills from their fives, tens and twenties," said Pomerantz, of the Council of the Bullheaded.

Redesigned bills could also hateful more job opportunities, since employers often hesitate to rent blind workers for jobs handling money, said Charlson, of the Perkins Schoolhouse for the Blind.

"When in that location are and then few things in your life that you've got total control over, beingness able to even take care of your own coin is such a large stride, without requiring someone to tell you whether you've got enough coin to become out and go a beer or accept a hamburger," she said.

The government could ask for a rehearing past the full appeals court or challenge the decision to the Supreme Court.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said the section was reviewing the stance. She noted that the Agency of Engraving and Printing, which prints the nation's currency, recently hired a contractor to consider ways to help the blind. The results will exist available early next twelvemonth, she said.

While the regime has been fighting to overturn the lower court ruling, it has been taking some steps toward modifying U.S. currency for the visually impaired. The most recent currency redesign of the $5 nib introduced in March features a behemothic "5" printed in purple on i side of the beak to assistance those with vision problems distinguish the neb.

Indeed, Treasury has previously considered making different sizes of bills but ran into opposition from makers of vending and change machines. Government lawyers raised this outcome in courtroom, saying information technology could toll billions to redesign vending machines. Simply the court said such data are murky, specially since one proposed solution would exist to leave $1 bills unchanged.

Given recent U.Southward. redesigns, the appeals court ruled the U.Due south. failed to explain why calculation more changes would be an undue burden. More than 100 other countries vary the size of their bills, a federal judge said in 2006, and others include at least some features to help the bullheaded. The European Key Bank, for example, worked closely with the bullheaded when designing euro notes that varied in size and independent other easily recognizable features.

The appeals court said the U.Due south. never explained why such solutions wouldn't piece of work here.

Not all bullheaded people agree that U.South. money should be changed. The National Federation of the Blind sided with the government and told the appeals court that no changes were needed.

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Source: https://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/north/2008/05/21/court-rules-paper-money-discriminates/52405036007/

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