[Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, August/September 2012
Brian Buhrow
buhrow at lothlorien.nfbcal.org
Wed Aug 29 14:47:32 PDT 2012
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 55, No. 8 August/September 2012
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive
(see reverse side) by
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Marc Maurer, President
telephone: (410) 659-9314
email address: nfb at nfb.org
Website address: http://www.nfb.org
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Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the
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of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
© 2012 by the National Federation of the Blind
Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a memory stick
or USB flash drive). You can read this audio edition using a computer or a
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a second slot located on the right side near the headphone jack. This
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Vol. 55, No. 8 August/September 2012
Contents
Illustrations: Blind Youth on the Fashion Runway
The 2012 Convention Roundup
by Gary Wunder
Presidential Report 2012
by Marc Maurer
Awards Presented at the 2012 Convention
of the National Federation of the Blind
The 2012 Bolotin Awards
by James Gashel
Meet the 2012 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class
The Intersection of Law and Love, an Address Delivered by
Marc Maurer
An End to Legalized Discrimination: A Demand for Justice and a Call for
Action
by Fredric K. Schroeder
The Client/Career Paradigm: An Entrepreneurial Perspective
by Anil Lewis
The Degrees of Freedom, the Organized Blind Movement: The Dynamics
of Independence and Success
by Mark A. Riccobono
Minar Directae
by Scott C. LaBarre
The Policy of Integration Enforceable at Law
by Eve L. Hill
Convention Resolutions
Leaving No Blind Person Behind
by Sharon Maneki
The 2012 Resolutions of the National Federation of the Blind
Convention Miniatures
Constitution of the National Federation of the Blind
Blind Youth on the Fashion Runway
One of the events at this year's convention was a fashion show held on
Saturday afternoon. Twenty contestants ranging in age from seven to twenty
came to demonstrate that one can look good without looking. The event was
hosted by Kim Cunningham, the second vice president of the National
Organization of Parents of Blind Children, and pictures were taken by her
husband, who runs their small business, Gulf Images Photography.
Picture one is of Abigail Duffy, who is walking with her cane extended
in front of her and wearing a blue, pink, and orange D-squared dress, brown
flip-flops, three-quarter sleeve cardigan, necklace, and pink hair clips.
She is eight years old; is in the third grade; lives in New Hampshire; and
loves reading, riding bikes, and kayaking with her daddy. She wants to be a
princess, race car driver, or engineer when she grows up.
The second picture shows Daniel Kay with his cane by his side. He is
wearing blue-and-white-striped denim engineer's overalls over a white T-
shirt with a matching engineer's hat. He has on blue Croc shoes and a red
bandana around his neck. He is seven years old, is in the second grade, and
is attending his first convention. Daniel loves reading, playing the piano,
and tae kwon do. As you might expect, he wants to be a train engineer when
he grows up.
In the third picture MarChé Daughtry is walking forward with her white
cane in hand. She is wearing brown capri pants; a cream, brown, coral, and
peach blouse; coordinating necklace and earrings; and brown wedge sandals
with cork heels. She is fourteen years old, lives in Virginia, is an avid
Braille reader, and plans to major in psychology. This was her sixth NFB
convention.
Next is seventeen-year-old Bree Lillyman walking with cane in hand.
She is wearing a grey sleeveless shorts romper with teal and yellow
flowers, tan platform sandals, and bangle bracelets. She is a freshman at
Loyola University in Chicago, where she plans to earn a degree in
publishing. Bree is from Illinois and enjoys theater and figure skating.
In the last picture Tatum Lewis poses with arms at her sides and hands
bent outward. She is wearing blue jeans tucked into knee-high boots, a
white T-shirt with butterflies layered under a pink and black plaid shirt.
She is nine years old, is in the third grade, and is from Indiana. This was
her first convention. She hopes to be a fashion designer or pop star.
The 2012 Convention Roundup
by Gary Wunder
When the woman at the airport check-in desk says, "I've been seeing
your friends all morning," when the gate agent asks, "Are you traveling
with them?" and when the man at the cab stand says "Hilton Anatole, right,
sir?" you can bet it is once again time for the convention of the National
Federation of the Blind. Convention seminars and other activities this year
began on Saturday, and, as we have come to expect, the halls were filled
with children ready for a day full of activities planned and executed by
the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. Presentations
covered everything from social skills and age-appropriate expectations to
choosing the right technology and how to get it.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Early in the NOPBC day of activities each year, President
Maurer sits down with the kids to answer questions about blindness. During
the discussion this year a charming little girl was eager to teach him to
play her favorite game.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Stephanie Kieszak, Laura Bostick, and Carlton Walker look
on as a panel discusses life in the mainstream.]
People looking for employment or wanting to help those who are
seeking a job could attend a job-seekers seminar. People hoping to replace
their old cell phones could attend a presentation entitled "Smartphone
Showdown: iOS and Android (which device is best for you, and how do the two
compare on features and apps)?" And, for those of us who still cling to the
familiar desktop, there was "The Best of Both Worlds: Windows on Mac
(advantages and disadvantages, and how to make it work)."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Brad Loos examines a Foo Dog (guardian lion) sculpture.
This is the male lion of the pair, identifiable because his paw rests on
the world.]
Because the Anatole is known for its beautiful art, we scheduled
guided tours allowing hotel guests to examine and ask questions about the
treasures on display. For newcomers Saturday evening featured a Rookie
Roundup coordinated by Pam Allen and attended by President Maurer and other
leaders. For those wanting to sing out and show their stuff, BLIND, Inc.,
hosted karaoke night, and so it went, event after event, packing the most
into seminar day.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Drake Alberhasky constructs a tower in NFB Camp.]
Sunday started with registration, a process that has truly gotten so
fast that registered attendees had merely to walk to the table, take their
packets, and move along so the next person could get tickets and an agenda.
Because it had been so widely distributed ahead of time, fewer copies were
picked up, and many used their iPhones or notetakers to follow the agenda,
having marked the items of most interest to them.
Since social media are playing a bigger part in the lives of blind
and sighted people, NFB 2012 TweetUp introduced the uninitiated to the
world of Twitter and explained how the NFB is using this resource to
communicate among our members and reach out to newcomers. Those who wanted
more physical activity could learn about self-defense, sponsored by the
Sports and Recreation Division, and the Travel and Tourism Division hosted
a panel of travel professionals to discuss the travel challenges and
opportunities available to blind people.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Charlie Brown and Scott LaBarre participate in the annual
mock trial in which real cases and a dose of humor make the legal process
entertaining.]
As always happens on registration day, 1:30 found most convention
attendees waiting for the gavel to fall convening the meeting of the
resolutions committee. After all of the intellectual heavy-lifting in
considering our policy direction, Federationists by the hundreds attended
the fifteenth annual mock trial, where the term "blind justice" was once
again redefined with levity and good cheer.
Convention activities continued throughout the evening with a meeting
of the National Association of Blind Veterans to talk about how we can best
serve returning service men and women; a showcase of technology for those
in the exhibit hall to advertise their products and services; and a meeting
to discuss how to find, recruit, and grow new members so they can be a part
of our dynamic social movement.
Among the convention presentations mentioned in the Roundup, some
will be reprinted in full, some will be covered in detail, and some will
get only a mention. All of them are available in full at
<www.nfb.org/convention-highlights>, and many of the on-stage presentations
will shine through their recordings in a way that cannot be captured on
paper. Even Federationists who were in Dallas will be surprised at how much
they get from hearing some of these presentations without the distraction
of noise and other interruptions that make up the convention experience.
On Monday morning the meeting of the board of directors commenced
promptly at 9:00 a.m. with all members present. The gathering took time to
remember those we have lost in the past year: Art Dingus, Don Galloway,
Thelma Godwin, Ed Lewinson, Ray Marshall, Joie Stuart, Margaret Warren,
Levada Kemp, and Frank Lee were mentioned by name. For the first time in
many decades, longtime Federation leaders Don and Betty Capps were not with
us. Both were unwell, and their inability to come to Dallas marked the end
of 56 consecutive conventions for Don and one shy this number for Betty.
Leaders Jim and Sharon Omvig were in attendance, and the convention
enthusiastically echoed its best wishes for both couples, who have played a
vital role in building the Federation and helping the blind.
President Maurer announced that all officers would stand for election
this year: Marc Maurer, president, Maryland; Fred Schroeder, first vice
president, Virginia; Ronald Brown, second vice president, Indiana; James
Gashel, secretary, Colorado; and Pam Allen, treasurer, Louisiana. In
addition, board members Amy Buresh, Nebraska; Patti Chang, Illinois; Mike
Freeman, Washington; John Fritz, Wisconsin; Carl Jacobsen, New York; and
Alpidio Rolón, Puerto Rico saw their current terms coming to an end.
The convention was welcomed to Texas by our state president, Kimberly
Flores. She told us to get ready for a lively convention, some good Texas
barbecue, and a strong dose of Texas hospitality second to none. Barbie
Elliott, a chapter president and member of the state board in Utah, came to
the platform to sing an original composition entitled "I can do anything."
[audio one]
Our focus on literacy means that Braille is an important part of the
work we do and support. The American Action Fund operates a free Braille
books program that will give any blind child a Braille book to keep.
Children interested in the books offered by the Action Fund can go to the
website <www.actionfund.org> or can contact Mrs. Patricia Maurer at (410)
659-9314, extension 2272.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Carl Jacobsen]
Carl Jacobsen chairs the Imagination Fund committee. In addressing
the convention he talked about the imaginative programs of the Jernigan
Institute, the grants that have been given to affiliates, and the way we
turn our dreams into programs. This year Carl introduced the dream machine,
a 21st-century marvel with a fully accessible interface consisting of two
slots: one for the cards containing dreams the Jernigan Institute will
figure out how to implement and the second for the fuel to make the dreams
in the dream machine come true. With the insertion of every dream came an
audible confirmation worthy of the finest science fiction sound effects.
René Smith, the president of the National Federation of the Blind of
Nevada, came to the podium to make an affiliate contribution to the
national treasury in the amount of $563,721.50. She brought more than a
promise; more than a pledge; she brought a check.
Julie Deden and Scott LaBarre presented a check to the national
treasury in the amount of $100,000 and noted that in the last year and a
half the NFB has gotten donations from Colorado in excess of $2.5 million.
Julie told the assembled that a generous bequest has allowed the Colorado
Center for the Blind to purchase apartments for its students. The name of
the building that now houses those apartments is the McGeorge Mountain
Terrace, named after longtime Federation leaders Ray and Diane McGeorge.
Patti Chang of Illinois reported that her affiliate will be receiving a
bequest in the amount of $85,000, of which $42,500 will come to the
national treasury.
The Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award was presented by
committee chair and national board member Cathy Jackson. The award and a
check for $1,000 were presented to Casey L. Robertson of Mississippi. The
presentation of this award is reported in full elsewhere in this issue.
President Maurer announced that he is now accepting the names of
those wishing to serve on Federation committees. In addition to the names
submitted at the convention, those interested in serving should write to
him at the national office by sending an email to
<officeofthepresident at nfb.org> or by writing him at 200 E. Wells Street,
Baltimore, MD 21230.
Scott LaBarre encouraged participation in the Preauthorized Contribution
Plan, listed the top twenty states contributing to the program, and
challenged us to reach $415,000 by the end of the convention.
Dr. David Ticchi came to the platform to present the Blind Educator
of the Year award. This year's recipient is Catherine Mendez. A report of
this presentation and acceptance can be found elsewhere in this issue.
Some time ago the Federation established a savings account to be used
in hard times. It is called the SUN (Shares Unlimited in the NFB) fund, and
it is chaired by Sandy Halverson. The fund had somewhat over one million
dollars coming into the convention, and the goal was to raise that to one
and a half million dollars before convention end.
The thirty scholarship winners were introduced, and each was given
thirty seconds to tell the board and the convention about himself or
herself. A full report of this presentation is found elsewhere in this
issue. So impressive were these winners that the board voted unanimously to
sponsor the scholarship program in 2013.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Justin Hughes]
Scott LaBarre was once again called to the platform to introduce
Justin Hughes, a professor at the Benjamin Cardozo school of Law and the
chief negotiator representing the United States in treaty negotiations at
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The U.S. copyright
exemption created for the blind by the Chafee amendment in 1996 is by no
means universal around the world, and under existing law it is illegal to
share accessible materials across national borders. Mr. Hughes said that
one of the things he admires about the National Federation of the Blind is
that its leaders strike the right balance between idealism and realism. He
said, "The only way one gets things done is by having both a broad vision
and a commitment to detail.... A change in the law is sometimes mistakenly
believed to be a change in reality, but it is only the first small step....
In terms of books, we want to get people to follow the law--that part which
is mandatory and then the part that is permissive."
The twenty-six teachers in our Teacher of Tomorrow program were next
introduced to tell the board what they had learned as a result of their
experience. Their statements make it clear that they have come to a
different view of blindness: one they will share not only with their
students but with the world.
For the first time in anyone's memory and certainly for the first
time since Dr. Maurer has been president, the meeting of the board of
directors adjourned before its scheduled time of 11:30.
The afternoon brought meetings of divisions, committees, and groups,
representing the diversity of the professions in which the blind are found
and the numerous interests we share. Reports from a few of these divisions,
committees, and groups will be covered elsewhere in this issue.
When the Tuesday morning session was gaveled to order, Tom Anderson,
the president of the National Association of the Blind in Communities of
Faith and pastor of the chapel at Littleton Pentecostal Church in
Littleton, Colorado, gave the invocation. President Maurer reported that so
far we had forty-three visitors representing fifteen foreign countries in
attendance and that registration as of the close of business on Monday was
2,241. Texans were rightfully proud to be number one in registration and
vowed to take home the attendance banner at the close of the convention.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Kimberly Flores welcomes the convention to Dallas.]
Kimberly Flores welcomed us to Texas by beginning her remarks: "I
stand before you and all of the incredible energy in this room; I stand
before you in anticipation of the great themes we are going to see this
week; I stand before you in comfort, because I am wearing cowboy boots....
One of the things we are proud of in Texas is our rich music history, from
Willie Nelson to Stevie Ray Vaughn. We have a diverse musical tapestry. The
Grammy-winning musical act we are presenting this morning is no exception."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Max Baca and David Farias energize the convention.]
An introduction of the performers was given in Spanish by the first
vice president of Texas, Jose Marquez. It was then given in English by the
band Los Texmaniacs featuring Max Baca and David Farias. Max played the
bajo sexto, a twelve string guitar-like instrument, which customarily
provides rhythm accompaniment for the button accordion, thus creating the
core of the conjunto sound. David plays the accordion. Their sound
energized those in the hall, whether their preference was classical, pop,
folk, or country. [Audio cut two]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Presentation of the colors by American Legion Unit 21]
Dwight Sayer came to the stage to conduct a ceremony honoring
veterans who are members of the National Federation of the Blind and to
honor the United States of America on her 208th birthday. He began by
presenting to President Maurer a flag-draped cross with a scroll of the
Pledge of Allegiance in the center of the cross. The most senior veteran to
appear on the stage was recognized individually. Tech Sergeant James Hunter
was discharged in 1946 and is ninety-one years old. After each veteran gave
name, rank, and service, the colors were presented by American Legion Post
21 from The Colony, Texas. The ceremony concluded with the singing of the
National Anthem, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and "God Bless America," led by
Father John Sheehan.
The roll call of states found all fifty-two affiliates present, with
many offering tidbits to spice up the mandatory information gathered in
this segment. Elsie Dickerson of Idaho asked that we keep Shelly Newhouse
in our prayers as she battles a flesh-eating disease that has kept her
hospitalized since April. Debbie Brown of Maryland asked the convention to
do a shout-out to Melissa Riccobono, the president of the National
Federation of the Blind of Maryland, who was listening to the convention
stream as she recuperated from the birth of Elizabeth, Melissa and Mark's
third child. The convention sent greetings to both Melissa and Elizabeth.
Gary Ray of North Carolina said, "Last year at this time North
Carolina had a number of tremendous governmental and legislative reverses.
Our school for the blind was going to be closed; NEWSLINE® funding was in
jeopardy; the governor had issued executive orders to merge our VR agency
into a super agency and had put one of our critical committees on a hit
list. In North Carolina we have run the table since then. The Governor
Morehead School has been unclosed; NEWSLINE has been funded for another
year; the legislature blocked the merger of our VR agency, and the
legislature has blocked the dissolution of the Consumer and Advocacy
Advisory Committee for the Blind." These victories briefly halted the roll
call with applause from the convention and the drawing of a door prize.
Alpidio Rolón said: "When the National Federation of the Blind was
organized in Puerto Rico, many thought that we would be just one more
organization of blind people. Twenty years later a white cane law, a
Braille literacy statute, and a law giving us the right to vote
independently show that we are here, alive and kicking."
When South Carolina was called, affiliate President Parnell Diggs
asked that the convention remember Don and Betty Capps. With the hope that
Don and Betty would hear their love and enthusiasm in the convention
recordings, those in the hall roared their appreciation for the tireless
service the couple has given.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Preety Kumar]
The last item of business in the morning session was a presentation
entitled "Access to the Internet for the Blind," presented by Preety Kumar,
CEO of Deque Systems, Inc. Deque was the Web Accessibility Champion sponsor
for the 2012 convention, and, as the sponsorship implies, this company and
its director have an abiding interest in access to the web and in working
with the blind to get it. They believe that accessibility isn't about
technology; it's about making sure that the most amazing information
resource in human history is open and available to every person on the
planet. The concept of accessibility can be abstract, but a life story is
concrete and personal. Accessibility Stories is an online project for
sharing individual anecdotes to highlight the difference accessibility has
made in the lives of blind people, and at its booth in the exhibit hall
Deque Systems used an entire evening to film the stories of those who use
this resource for employment, recreation, and fuller participation.
Many accessibility challenges exist from the jobsite to the social
media site. Amaze is a program developed by Deque to bring accessibility to
all kinds of websites, even when site owners show little if any interest in
making what they offer available to the blind who use assistive technology.
The program is installed as an extension or plug-in that will work with a
web browser, and one of the plug-in's functions is to make the Facebook
site completely usable by the blind. This offering from Deque Systems is
free to members of the National Federation of the Blind. Anyone wanting to
obtain it should go to <www.deque.com/nfb> to complete a form to request
the plug-in.
In adition to this program, Deque is creating the Amaze Accessibility
Center, a team within Deque that will work actively to ensure that customer
sites are accessible, to identify accessibility problems before they affect
users, and to empower customers so the company can guarantee accessibility
in the same way they now guarantee security and privacy. "We are committing
today to hire and staff the Amaze Accessibility Center with as many new
employees who are blind as we are able to find and train."
The falling of the gavel on Tuesday afternoon introduced the annual
Presidential Report. In just over an hour President Maurer touched on the
dreams that bring us together, the obstacles we face that bring out our
collective creativity and resourcefulness, and the commitment we make to
one another in turning those obstacles into opportunities. The president's
remarks are reprinted in full immediately following this article.
In remarks titled "Video Description Research and Development Center,
Descriptive Video Exchange: Enhancing the Experience by Empowering the
Consumer," Joshua A. Miele, director at Smith-Kettlewell discussed the
exciting new possibility of more descriptive programming for video-based
educational materials. The goal is to include an audio track to describe
scenes that are not clear from the dialogue and other audio. The creators
of television shows, movies, and educational videos have been slow to
embrace the cost of adding an audio track, and volunteer groups have had to
get permission before adding to and thereby modifying material covered
under copyright law. While descriptive video has traditionally been used
for entertainment, technology is changing the building blocks of education,
and even the textbook is becoming an experience involving audio-visual
material. The concept behind the Descriptive Video Exchange is that the
audio description will be generated apart from the material being described
and accordingly will require no modification to the original material.
Anyone may upload audio descriptions, and the player the blind person will
use can find the video for anything that has been described. Alternatively,
when a blind person encounters a presentation, software running on his
mobile device can listen to the audio and search to see if an audio
description exists. If it does, the mobile device can sychronize playing
the audio description with the program.
The thrust of this initiative is to take description out of the hands
of content creators and place it in the hands of consumers. To this end the
National Federation of the Blind has partnered with the Smith-Kettlewell
Video Research and Development Center to train blind people to do video
description. The blind can write the narrative; read it into the
descriptive service; or coordinate the efforts with others who wish to view
and describe a documentary, a television show, or a movie. When
professional video describers are needed, we will have them available, and
videos, whether in a textbook or a movie classic, will be usable by
everybody.
"The Degrees of Freedom, The Organized Blind Movement: The Dynamics
of Independence and Success" was presented by the executive director of the
Jernigan Institute, Mark Riccobono. Mark wisely observed that every time we
work to change the lives of blind people, we increase the degree of freedom
that others have and in turn improve our lives. His presentation is
reprinted elsewhere in this issue.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Rob Sinclair]
President Maurer next introduced Rob Sinclair, director of
accessibility and chief accessibility strategist at Microsoft. While we
have not always been happy with the accessibility of Microsoft products and
have wished for a stronger commitment from the company, what is accessible
is largely due to the efforts of Rob and his team, and for this Mr.
Sinclair was welcomed with warm applause. In Windows 8 Microsoft has a
built-in screen reader that will allow a blind person to use Windows out of
the box. This is quite different from other Windows releases, in which any
significant use of the computer would require the purchase and installation
of third-party screen-reading software. Narrator, Microsoft's screen-
reading solution, will not only be accessible through the keyboard, but
will offer a touch-screen experience similar to that found on many smart
phones and tablets. Microsoft has completely rewritten its accessibility
standard with the requirement that all of its new products be accessible.
When longtime technology users hear or read this statement, we feel much
like former President Ronald Reagan speaking about the former Soviet Union
when he said, "Trust but verify." Technically it is possible and very
desirable that all new products be accessible; Microsoft and other
companies have a talented group of people dedicated to access; the real
issue becomes whether, when a new product is introduced, the team dedicated
to accessibility will be on the bus that brings an accessible product or
will be thrown under the bus that brings one that is not.
Microsoft is also building better customer support through its
accessibility team, by focusing on social media sites and other channels to
get better feedback in building products and better support once those
products hit the market.
Finally, a number of companies would like to create accessible
products but have no idea how to do it. Microsoft has pledged to increase
its effort to reach out to these businesses with programs to help train
them and provide tools they can use to evaluate their progress.
"Minar Directae" was the title of the next agenda item, presented by
the president of the National Association of Blind Lawyers, Scott LaBarre.
For all of the antidiscrimination laws on the books, one argument that is
still used against blind people and others with disabilities is safety--
safety to ourselves or others. Scott's moving remarks appear in full
elsewhere in this issue.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood]
"Accessible Travel and a Safe Environment for the Blind: A Commitment
from the Secretary of Transportation" was delivered by the Honorable Ray H.
LaHood. When Secretary LaHood was a member of Congress, he was helpful to
us in getting the leadership to take seriously our need for digital books
from the National Library Service. He has been helpful in supporting the
Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act and now heads the agency responsible for
drafting regulations to implement it. His job is also to ensure that, not
only is it safe for the blind to travel, but it is easy and convenient. He
is engaged in the challenge of getting the airlines to make their websites
accessible and to make the kiosks used to check in at airports usable by
the blind. "Like all of you I believe it is important that we work together
to make transportation accessible for every American. Everyone deserves
safe and reliable access to his or her job, to schools, to stores--everyone
deserves the right to pursue an education and live independently...That's
what transportation is all about. It's more than a way to get from one
place to another; it's the means by which we lead our lives...President
Obama and the Department of Transportation are committed to giving all
Americans the opportunity to achieve their dreams, and we are especially
committed to providing accessible transportation for blind and low-vision
Americans."
[PHOTO CAPTION: Federationists enjoy a Texas-style barbecue.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Grammy-Award-winning artist JP Williams entertains]
On Tuesday evening, following adjournment, the Texas affiliate hosted
a real Texas barbecue, with music provided by JP Williams. The Performing
Arts Division provided people with a chance to make a demo CD, the
Louisiana Center for the Blind welcomed a gathering of its alumni, the
Colorado Center for the Blind had an open house for those wishing to learn
about its services, and the employment committee offered its expertise to
anyone who wanted tips on finding a job and to employers wanting people to
fill them. Bookshare, an innovative service that gives blind people access
to books for education and recreation, celebrated its tenth anniversary,
while members of our strategic initiatives staff offered a seminar on how
to promote national legislation. Parents had the opportunity to learn about
the basics of the individual education plan, while their children could
learn more about the Nemeth Code. A grant-writing seminar for chapters,
divisions, and affiliates was available later in the evening.
Wednesday morning began with an invocation delivered by a high priest
and bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Bruce
Gardner. President Maurer recognized our sponsors for the 2012 convention.
Those businesses helping us in our work as White Cane sponsors included the
Sendero Group; Southwest Airlines; eBay; Independence Science; Scripts for
JAWS.com; HIMS, Inc.; Bookshare; Learning Ally; Sprint; and Envision
America. Our Bronze sponsors were IBM; Research in Motion; Vital Source
Technologies; Adobe Systems; and C&P, Chris Park Designs. Our Silver
sponsors were Freedom Scientific and FoxKiser. Gold sponsors were Google,
Market Development Group, and Vanda Pharmaceuticals. Platinum sponsors were
Oracle, UPS, and Humanware. Our Web Accessibility Champion sponsor was
Deque Systems.
President Maurer reviewed the finances of the Federation, and
affiliates were given copies of the annual report. While fundraising at a
level necessary to support all we must do is always difficult, the economy
in 2012 has made this a particularly daunting challenge. The organization
must live within its means, and this it has done, but there may be
difficult times to come, and the president warned that we should be
prepared to make changes in the coming year if we cannot figure out a way
to generate more income.
He briefly reviewed some of the policies and procedures to see that
our money is spent as expected. The president is the officer who approves
all expenditures. All checks written are reviewed by the treasurer at least
quarterly. No check is written without a written authorization, and no
check is released unless two people have looked at the check and the
authorization. The person who authorizes a check cannot sign it, so two
people must review each check we write. Any check in excess of $10,000 must
be signed by two people, who also review the authorizations that were
required before it was written. The auditors are then allowed to look at
anything or everything they want, and, if they find any systemic problems,
these findings are reported and addressed.
Following the Honor Roll Call of States, we conducted the election of
officers and six board positions. All current members were returned to
office, and the commitment of those elected and those who elected them were
evident in the remarks offered and the applause received.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Michelle Chacon (right) helps Andrew Minter with cane
travel.]
Mike May, the chief executive officer of the Sendero Group, addressed
the convention to discuss "The Seeing Eye App: GPS for the Blind on the
iPhone." Mike and his company have created a number of products that have
provided the benefits of the global positioning system to the blind. He got
into this work, not only to make a living, but to create something useful
for himself and have fun doing it. It was not his love of gadgets but of
adventure that caused him to work on harnessing the power of this new
technology. Current versions can determine one's location, accept an
address, and create a pedestrian or vehicular route to it. Points of
interest can be labeled, searched, and shared with others--favorite
restaurants, grocery stores, or the home of a friend. The first incarnation
of Sendero's software ran on a laptop; the latest will soon run on an
iPhone. Sendero has partnered with the Seeing Eye with the mission of
developing a system which is both small and useful. The iPhone version may
have fewer features than currently available on notetakers, but it will be
powerful and will meet the special needs of blind travelers, whether
pedestrians or navigators.
"Inspiring Independence for the Blind through Faith and Service: from
New York to the Vatican" was delivered by the chairman of the Xavier
Society for the Blind, Father John Sheehan. His call to serve blind people
was not one he chose but accepted, and what he has found in this work
convinces him that God knows best what we need and how we can be of benefit
to Him and mankind. Before coming to the Society, Father Sheehan knew
little about blind people, and his experience daily confirms how little
most people know about us. He said that we may mistakenly believe, because
of our life experience or because of our association with people who are
blind, that the general public knows about our capabilities, but, only if
we go beyond our comfort zone to engage them will we really teach and
thereby change the public's attitude and the lives of blind people. The
troubled economy means that there will be changes in the programs of the
Society, but it will remain a positive force in work with the blind, and
Braille will remain a fundamental part of its programs and services.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Maryanne Diamond]
We then moved from national programs to the international scene.
Maryanne Diamond, the president of the World Blind Union, and Arnt Holte,
vice-executive director of the Norwegian Association of the Blind,
addressed the convention on the subject of the Federation in the World. The
problems faced by the blind of the United States are shared by others in
the world, but the problems in other countries are often more severe, and
the tools for finding and implementing solutions are fewer.
As President Maurer noted, the National Federation of the Blind's role
in world affairs is threefold: to help support international programs where
we can, to be an example of what the blind can do through self-organization
and concerted action, and to learn from others who must achieve freedom
against substantial odds and to be inspired by them. The NFB, through the
work of our founding president, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, was instrumental in
forming the International Federation of the Blind. We have been active in
the World Blind Union since it was conceived. The relationship between the
NFB and the World Blind Union must be one in which the Federation both
gives and receives. We are active in seeking cross-border sharing of books
that have been converted into Braille, audio, or large print. We work
cooperatively to solve the problem of cars too quiet to hear. In the effort
to change the State Department's initiative to give the inaccessible Kindle
to developing countries, we have been joined by organizations from other
nations and by the World Blind Union. This is the way we help and why we
participate.
The afternoon session began with President Maurer reporting that the
morning session had been heard by people from twelve countries. The newest
version of the PAC song rang out through the hall and throughout the world
as Richie Flores played the guitar and more than two-thousand people in the
hall joined in singing the modern melody to inspire donations to the
Preauthorized Contribution Plan.
Of course, after one packs, the next step is to travel. Accordingly,
"Equal Access for the Blind; Airfares, Hotels, Cruises: Savings with
Travelocity" was presented by Steve Dumaine, senior vice president of
global strategy and product innovation from Travelocity. The philosophy at
Travelocity is that "Life isn't about acquiring possessions; it's about
collecting memories." The NFB and Travelocity have been working to enhance
the travel experience for blind people. Travelocity has found its
relationship so important that it has already committed to be a Platinum
sponsor in 2013. The remarks of Mr. Dumaine will appear in their entirety
in a future issue.
A well-known and much loved developer of technology, Deane Blazie,
next came to talk about "The Affordable Powerful Notetaker for the Blind."
He was joined by Brian Mac Donald, who serves as the president of National
Braille Press. Deane and Brian are a part of a team composed of some twenty-
five individuals and organizations concerned about the declining literacy
of the blind. Developing and manufacturing more affordable devices that
produce refreshable Braille output will make a significant contribution to
the effort to reverse this crisis. The first result of this collaboration
between the NFB and other organizations is the Braille 2 Go, a Braille
notetaker with twenty cells, GPS, built-in WiFi, a 4G cell phone that can
be used on the AT&T or Verizon network, and an audio player. The unit is
expected to cost between two-thousand and three-thousand dollars and is
expected to be available before next year's national convention in Orlando.
With the thought of more Braille dancing under our fingers, Jim
Gashel was invited to make an introduction, whereupon he announced he would
introduce Steven King. Larry King--we had him before, but Steven King--well
now, somebody worth reading. Though the topic had everything to do with
reading; it was not the well-known author who came but the president of the
DAISY Consortium. DAISY is an acronym for the Digital Accessible
Information System. If you read audio books from the National Library
Service, you use DAISY books. The goal of DAISY is to make electronic books
both accessible and navigable for blind people. Mr. King's presentation was
"The DAISY Consortium Global Partnership: Working with the NFB to End the
Book Famine." So important were Mr. King's remarks that they will appear in
an upcoming issue.
The Strategic Initiatives team of the National Federation of the
Blind is headed by John Paré. His team oversees NFB-NEWSLINE®, public
relations, and the governmental affairs activities of the organization. In
the past year NFB-NEWSLINE has added nine state newspapers, eight
international newspapers, and four magazines. The service offers readers
the option to read their favorite material using the telephone, computer,
or iPhone. Newspapers and magazines can be read using any number of
portable digital book readers, the NLS Talking Book player, or an MP3
player. Subscribers can have their favorite publications sent through email
or can read them with the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. These options mean
that newspapers and magazines are no longer publications that leave the
blind out but are available in any format we desire.
This year the National Federation of the Blind appeared in more than
three-thousand articles covering everything from how we read to the unfair,
discriminatory, and immoral practice of paying the blind less than the
minimum wage. To address this issue, Anil Lewis came to the microphone to
talk about our effort to do away with the law that permits payment of less
than the minimum wage. He said that, while many have actively supported our
efforts to make these payments illegal, some have called to say they would
like more data. He was glad to oblige and said, "Thirty-three percent of
people K-12 with disabilities have segregated sheltered work employment as
their vocational goal; we've given up on them, even before they've had a
chance to get an education. I think that's wrong; it's unfair,
discriminatory, and immoral. Ninety-five percent of the people employed in
these segregated work environments will never transition to other
employment. This is the lie, the lie that these facilities are places of
training and transition: they are stuck there for the rest of their working
lives, and that's unfair, discriminatory, and immoral. Fifty percent of
those employed under special wage certificates make less than half the
minimum wage; that's ridiculous but beyond that it is unfair,
discriminatory, and immoral. Twenty-five percent of these people make less
than a dollar an hour: a dollar--that's not a job; that's unfair,
discriminatory, and immoral. We have found documentation of people making
as little as three cents per hour--ridiculous! This is unfair,
discriminatory, and immoral. Forty-six percent of the revenue of sheltered
workshops comes from public funds. These facilities are not run from money
made by engaging in good business practices; almost half of their money
comes from the federal government....Because of our education and because
of our commitment to do what is right, we have been able to get eighty-two
cosponsors of H.R. 3086, the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act."
Lauren McClarney coherently, intelligently, and spirititedly
addressed another of the Federation's legislative initiatives: the Home
Appliances Accessibility Act. Its intent is to see that home appliances
sold in this country are usable by the blind. Congress has thus far refused
to endorse the Act, agreeing that something must be done, but opining that
this proposal is controversial. As Lauren says, "I think congress needs to
redefine the word `controversial.' Congress passes resolutions all the
time: naming post offices and other benign things, but, when it really
matters, when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to telling a company
or an institution to rethink its business model, it's a challenge, but it's
one the National Federation of the Blind is willing to face and one that
the Congress should embrace as well."
Fortunately, better news is found in the area of transportation and
the decision of the Department of Transportation to update the Air Carrier
Access Act regulations to cover airline websites and automated airport
kiosks. Other regulatory changes we support will ensure that audible
signals emit tones and vibrations that truly benefit blind travelers.
Finally, we are involved in discussions about updating regulations to
implement Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act that require equipment
purchased or developed by the federal government to be usable by the blind.
While Section 508 has been law since 1998, the Act has served more as a
goal than as a guide for action. The new regulations are intended to see
that the intent of the Act is translated into products that expand
opportunities in the federal government and to create more accessible
technology by harnessing the purchasing power of one of the largest
purchasers of technology in the world.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Students play poker at the annual Monte Carlo night
sponsored by the National Association of Blind Students.]
In 1997 we managed to get language placed in the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act saying that Braille shall be the presumed
reading medium for blind students. Despite this unabiguous language,
educators have still denied Braille to blind children, and in many areas of
the country schools have continued to insist that children use print they
can barely see. The results are what one would expect: reading is slow,
reading is painful, and reading is seldom appreciated for the
transformative role it can play in the lives of blind children. A poor
education in the classroom leads to no opportunity in the board room and
continues to send the message to blind children that they cannot keep up in
a sighted world. Some members of Congress have recognized the problems but
have said we should wait until the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act is reauthorized. In the best of times this would be five years away.
Fortunately Senator Patty Murray of Washington State understands that
denying Braille to blind students has the same result that denying print to
sighted students would have--the result would be nothing less than an
illiterate population. She was joined by Senator John Boozman of Arkansas
in writing a Dear Colleague letter that urges the Department of Education
to issue new regulations to carry out the intent of Congress that blind
people shall receive Braille instruction and that the burden of proof must
fall, not on the parents who request Braille instruction, but on the IEP
team to show that Braille will not be useful for that student. As a result
of this letter signed by twenty-six Senators, the secretary of education
has agreed to meet with the National Federation of the Blind, and it is
clear that we will settle for nothing less than Braille for the blind
students who attend our nation's public schools."
Often we help to create and support legislation, but sometimes
working on behalf of blind people means we must oppose it. Last year a
proposal to amend the Rehabilitation Act by adding Section 511 was
proposed. This section would have incorporated references to Section 14(c)
of the Fair Labor Standards Act that permit payment of less than the
minimum wage to the blind. We opposed its inclusion, and Section 511 died.
Similarly, Senator Robert Portman of Ohio proposed that vending
opportunities offered to the blind on our nation's highways be given to
commercial enterprises. Since highway vending provides hundreds of jobs to
blind people and much needed revenue for business enterprise programs
throughout the country, the National Federation of the Blind asked the
Senator to withdraw his proposal. He did not. In fact he recruited the
National Governors Association to help in the effort. We asked the Senate
leadership to block the amendment, and Senator Portman said that, unless
his amendment was considered, there would be no action on the Surface
Transportation bill. The leadership allowed it to move forward. We then
contacted every United States Senator, emphasizing the value of highway
rest areas to the livelihoods of many. When the vote was taken, the blind
won the day with eighty-six Senators voting to preserve our business
opportunities.
After the rousing presentations given by John Paré, Anil Lewis,
Lauren McLarney, and Jesse Hartle, the convention turned its attention to
twenty-six resolutions. A complete report from the resolutions committee
and the texts of the resolutions adopted are found elsewhere in this issue.
[PHOTO CAPTION: On Wednesday evening the NFB Spanish translation committee
sponsored a "Salsa Night in Dallas," in which instructors taught students
how to dance using the familiar six-dot Braille cell. Shown here are Ramona
Walhof and her instructor.]
Thursday morning began with an invocation given by David Stayer, a
cantor from Young Israel of Myrick New York. David's prayer, which always
concludes in song, drew a round of applause from the audience, and our
spirits were raised even higher by the announcement of Renè Smith,
president of the National Federation of the Blind of Nevada, that NFB-
NEWSLINE® was coming to the state.
The first official presentation of the morning, delivered by Kevin
Carey, the chairman of the Royal National Institute for Blind People, was
entitled "The Democratisation of Braille." He began his presentation by
saying: "Braille is on the verge of a global catastrophe as great as that
which the music industry faced in the 1990s and as great as that now facing
book, magazine, and newspaper publishers. If we don't do something radical
to save it, we, the baby boomers, will be the last generation to take
Braille seriously." With these provocative remarks as backdrop, he
presented five reasons why Braille is in trouble and focused on how we
might address them. His presentation will appear in full in a later issue.
"The Client/Career Paradigm: An Entrepreneurial Perspective" was
presented by the NFB Director of Strategic Communications, Anil Lewis. He
exercised a bit of personal privilege by acknowledging his fourteen-year-
old son Amari, his brother Rafael, and what he alleged to be the best
scholarship class ever, his class of 2002. His remarks appear elsewhere in
this issue.
Since employment is a major key to independence, integration, and
financial security, the presentation that followed was of particular
interest. Its title was "State Programs to Encourage Independence for the
Blind," and it was presented by Larry E. Temple, executive director of the
Texas Workforce Commission. Like anyone else looking for employment, blind
people must look at the job market to determine what is needed, what
education is required, and whether they have an aptitude for the work being
sought. In the 760 jobs tracked by the Census Bureau in its survey of
American communities, blind people in Texas were represented in more than
two-thirds of those jobs. Nationally the unemployment rate is 8.8 percent.
In Texas the unemployment rate of blind people actively attempting to find
jobs is 6.8 percent. This is counterintuitive to the commonly quoted
statistic that the unemployment rate of the blind is seventy percent, and
in fact the unemployment rate of blind people in Texas is actually lower
than that of the general population, 6.9 percent. The problem is that a
number of blind people aren't working and, for whatever reason, are not
actively seeking work. Some are retired; some are stay-at-home moms or
dads; but too many have just given up looking for a job.
Employers say they want someone who is trained or who is trainable, that
they want someone who knows what it means to come to work on time every
day, and that they want someone who is able to get along in an increasingly
diverse workforce. Employers want problem-solvers: people who can identify
a problem, analyze it, come up with options, bring them to management, and
then act on whatever decision management makes. Finally, employers want
people who can communicate both through the written word and orally.
Blind people bring much to this employer wish list. Dealing with
blindness makes us problem-solvers. Getting the information we need makes
us good communicators. The first job one takes may be quite different from
the job one wants, but it is always critical to get that first job. A first
job generally leads to a second job, and that second job and those that
come after are what lead to a career. Start in high school and college to
get that all-important work experience; employers identify the single most
important item missing on most résumés as a good job reference. The
reference is less important for what it says about what you know in order
to do the job you want than it does about your ability to be trained to do
the job your next employer wants done.
In his closing remarks Mr. Temple expressed gratitude for being
invited to present and explained why he was honored to be at the convention
of the National Federation of the Blind: "Two years ago I was sitting in
the back corner over here to the left, and there was a young couple who had
a little boy who was about seven who was blind. It was their first NFB
conference, and they had two other kids who were sighted. The father could
almost not talk--he was breaking up because he was so happy. For the first
time, at this conference, he realized that he could have the same
expectations for his son who was blind that he had for his other two
children. I just want you to know that you have my commitment and that of
my people to push that same expectation in our One-Stops and, to the degree
that I can, to influence it nationally." Those interested in finding
employment and those of us desperately searching for ways to help them
would do well to listen to this complete presentation at the link listed
earlier.
Moving from work to entertainment, Richard Orme, head of
accessibility and digital inclusion at the Royal National Institute of
Blind People (RNIB), addressed the convention with the catchy title
"Accessible Television Equipment: the United Kingdom Scoops the U.S." In
the UK there are more televisions than people, and the average citizen
watches more than four hours of it per day. Though blind people are too
often counted out because television is considered primarily a visual
experience, they too like television for both information and
entertainment. The two challenges that present problems for the full
enjoyment of television are knowing what is happening on the screen and
being able to take advantage of the many options now available only through
visual menus on the device.
In the UK audio description is very popular, with 80 percent of totally
blind people and 40 percent of visually impaired people using the service.
Currently the UK has sixty-nine channels carrying audio description, and
these are among the most popular channels in the country. Part of the
license requirement is that at least 10 percent of programming be audio
described. Several years ago industry leaders volunteered to double their
output of described content. Many broadcasters now produce more than a
third of their programming with audio description. Interestingly, many of
the American shows run in the UK are broadcast with audio description
because British broadcasters produce the audio description track before
they are aired.
Of course, having this content available has little value if you are
unable to navigate the many channels and options required to enjoy the rich
tapestry of programming. Mr. Orme said that, though many politicians talked
about the desirability of this access, initial contact with manufacturers
suggested that the challenge was impossible to meet. Even after working
with universities to develop prototypes, the industry was still not
convinced, and nothing was available for the purchasing public. As a result
of a lot of work with television manufacturers, products that are available
to the general public and are not blindness-specific now have accessibility
features allowing them to be used by the blind. This includes set-top
boxes, digital video recorders, and the televisions themselves. The result
is a fully talking television experience.
In addition to products that are born accessible, the RNIB has also
developed technology that will make existing devices such as satellite
receivers and digital video recorders speak. The audience was asked whether
it would like some of this television accessibility in America, and the
response was a resounding yes.
The good news is that, while much of this technology is currently
designed for television systems in the United Kingdom, some big-name
players are becoming involved, foremost among them Panasonic. Since the
television industry is highly competitive, when one company introduces a
feature, others often follow. A tremendous spinoff from this initiative to
make television more accessible is that big-name players who manufacture
televisions also make other consumer appliances into which this technology
can be easily integrated. With the mass deployment of speech technology, it
is quite reasonable to hope that the cost of text-to-speech equipment will
drop dramatically and thereby increase its prevalence in devices which will
offer an out-of-the-box experience for the blind.
"Implementing Accessibility for the Print Disabled at the University
System-Level" was presented by Dr. Gerard Hanley, the senior director of
academic technology services and the executive director of Multimedia
Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching at California State
University (CSU). The system Mr. Hanley represents graduates more students
than any other institution of higher learning in the U.S. In this system
more than ten-thousand five-hundred students are registered for disability
services. As with other public institutions, finances are difficult, and
this system educates one-hundred thousand more students than it did in
1999, while receiving the same state contribution it got at that time. More
than a billion dollars of state funding has been lost, and the challenge is
to handle the issue of accessibility in these difficult financial times.
A key element in CSU's success has been achieved by letting the
faculty, instructional designers, academic advisors, and procurement
officers know what to do to make accessibility real--what the procedures
are for implementing it, and know what the consequences are if they get it
right or if they get it wrong. The commitment must come from the top, but
it must extend to all campus units and not just the disability service
programs. Responsibility must be embraced system-wide, but responsibility
must filter down to identifiable individuals because it takes a community
of people to implement policy. That community must have a voice in the way
decisions are made, and those with that voice will feel a deeper commitment
to the mission. An institution must not be defensive; it must admit that it
is not fully accessible and develop policies to find out where it falls
short and how it will address the problems it has identified. A key
stakeholder in this process is the blind consumer, and we must bring our
expertise and commitment to this process for it to be successful.
"An End to Legalized Discrimination: A Demand for Justice and a Call
for Action" was the title of the next presentation, which was forcefully
and passionately presented by Dr. Fredric Schroeder, NFB first vice
president and a research professor at San Diego State University. In his
remarks Dr. Schroeder discussed the dead-end roads traveled by too many
blind people because sheltered work facilities seek to place these men and
women in jobs in which their disabilities are exacerbated by the physical
work they are asked to do, when the solution is to look at their assets and
design jobs that make the most of their talents and abilities. Dr.
Schroeder's remarks appear in full elsewhere in this issue.
The next presentation entitled "Equal Access for the Blind to
Education," was introduced by President Maurer as follows: "How long and
how hard have we worked on this topic? Sometimes, when we address the topic
of education such as in Baltimore, Maryland, we find that 133 students are
in the school district, and only six of them are learning Braille. This
means that about a hundred-twenty-five are not, and we are told there's no
way to change it. We then find that inaccessible technology is deployed in
the school systems, and some of the people from the Department of Education
tell us that it's all right to have inaccessible technology there because,
if there comes to be a blind person, we'll get one piece of accessible
technology; it will be separate; it won't be equal; it won't be the same;
but there's no way to change it. That is what the Department of Education
tells us. So we want equal access for the blind to education, and we have
the deputy assistant secretary for policy from the Office for Civil Rights
of the United States Department of Education to come tell us how to get at
it. Here is Deputy Assistant Secretary Seth M. Galanter."
Mr. Galanter said that President Obama has set a goal that the United
States of America will lead the world in college graduates by 2020.
Secretary Duncan has interpreted this to mean that every single American,
regardless of income, race, background, or disability, must be helped to
reach his or her potential. To this end the administration has increased
both the number and cash value of Pell grants available to students.
While applauding these increases that have been supported by the
Administration and passed by Congress, we made it clear that blind people
continue to be held back by the insistence of officials in the Department
of Education and elsewhere that the provision of an individualized
education does not permit the mandatory inclusion of Braille in the
instruction plan for each student who is blind. Dr. Schroeder made the
observation that what goes down on an IEP is what is readily available to a
school district and nothing more. This is not the law and not the way it is
supposed to be, but, when thirty or forty children are spread out over a
large geographic area, the school district won't provide the service they
need unless it is clear by law that they must. He said that the department
should view the issue of Braille, not as an issue of education, but as one
of civil rights and that the letter from Senator Patty Murray and twenty-
five other Senators should show there is plenty of concern in the Senate
about this and that the Department should change its policy about Braille.
President Maurer said it is obvious that Secretary Galanter is a
brilliant guy, that he no doubt understands our concerns, and he asked if
he wished to offer any closing remarks. The assistant secretary made it
clear that he appreciates being considered a brilliant guy, that he
understands our concerns about Braille and the Individualized Education
Plan, and that this issue is being dealt with at the highest levels in the
Department of Education. He said that he has no power to alter the policy
but that he will certainly take back the message we have sent about
Braille. "My ears are burning," he said, good-naturedly, and, though his
message and ours were quite different, he left the stage to cordial
applause.
Perhaps no agency in the federal government can equal the National
Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) at the
Library of Congress when it comes to the number of blind people who turn to
it for service. For this reason NLS is featured prominently each year on
our convention program. This year has seen the appointment of a new
director, Dr. Karen Keninger. Though we were pleased she was in the
audience, we heard from Dr. Roberta Schaffer, the associate librarian for
library services at the Library of Congress. Her topic was "Pursuing
Policies and Practices that Meet Needs." President Maurer indicated in his
introduction that Dr. Shaffer has been of assistance to us in making
important library contacts throughout the country, and the warmth of his
introduction was returned in kind in the remarks Dr. Shaffer made.
First and foremost she made it clear that the Library of Congress
wishes to be the gold standard when it comes to books and publications for
the blind and physically handicapped. It has a commitment to use existing
and yet-to-be-developed technologies in the service of making reading
easier and more books available. The goal of upgrading the Braille and
Audio Reading Download (BARD) site to make it more robust, making the
WebBraille service a part of it, and making locally produced materials
available through NLS was reiterated, but she offered no firm timetable for
when these changes would be implemented and no explanation why the
previously promised enhancements remain unfulfilled.
Dr. Shaffer said that the Library of Congress gets it that Braille is
critical and that it cannot be put on the back burner when it comes to
library service. As a result of this commitment, the Library is holding a
symposium in 2013 to focus on Braille production. Not only is it desirable
to get more Braille from the major production houses who emboss Braille,
but it is also important to take advantage of technology and accept
contributions of Braille from other sources.
Dr. Shaffer ended her remarks by indicating that the Library intends
to take a much more active role as both the convener and a conversation
facilitator so that the NFB can speak to a variety of library groups and
library associations to share its philosophy about blindness and what blind
people need.
Once again spotlighting employment, the president introduced Kevan
Worley and Mark Jones to address the convention on the topic of "Blind
People at Work." Kevan Worley is the owner and CEO of Worley Enterprises
and owns Roosters Men's Grooming Center franchise in Colorado Springs,
Colorado. Mark Jones is the owner of Owensville Communications, which owns
and runs several radio stations and holds licenses for three more which
will begin broadcasting in the near future.
Mark began his presentation by saying that he did two monumental
things in 1972: one was that he got his first job in radio, and the second
was that he joined the National Federation of the Blind. His love of radio
began at four years of age when he realized he wasn't limited to the
records his family owned but could listen to all kinds of music with this
magic device called a radio. Not only did he love the music, he was
intrigued by the faraway stations he could hear. He learned about geography
by tuning the radio dial, listening for distant stations, learning their
location, and then asking his father to show him on a tactile map where
those stations were.
When Mark landed his first on-air job, it was doing the news from his
little town in Mississippi, and, since transportation was difficult, he did
his report by phone. He soon realized that, though radio brought news and
entertainment, to advance he needed to sell advertising and generate the
mother's milk of broadcasting: money.
Mark's experience is that, when blindness throws him a challenge, he
uses his brain to figure out a way to overcome it. For him success is more
about how much he wants something than it is how much or little he sees.
After good interviews that sometimes went nowhere when people learned he
was blind, Mark decided he not only wanted to talk on a radio station but
wanted to own one, so he did. He commented, "I wanted to get into a
position where I could hire and fire myself," and with hard work,
significant financial risk, and no guarantee he would succeed, he has
continued to persevere and now owns a thriving communications business.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Kevan Worley]
Kevan Worley echoed many of the themes in Mr. Jones's remarks and
talked about how badly one must want something to risk moving beyond his or
her comfort zone. His remarks will appear in full in a future issue.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Kareem Dale]
Scott LaBarre was next recognized for a PAC update and in closing
told the convention that Jim Pilkington, a member of the NFB of Colorado,
had come to convention feeling a bit under the weather, and that it appears
he had pneumonia. At the time of Scott's report Jim was in the hospital,
sedated and on a respirator. Scott asked all of us to keep Jim in our
prayers.
Kareem Dale, special assistant to the President for disability
policy, came to the platform to speak on the topic "Disability Policy from
the White House." Mr. Dale observed that our country is nearing a time of
decision about the role of the federal and state government in the lives of
citizens. As blind citizens we have a special interest in what happens. On
election day the blind and the rest of the voting public will determine our
direction.
Mr. Dale said that President Obama is committed to seeing that
everyone gets a fair shot while doing their fair share, and he believes
this is also what characterizes the National Federation of the Blind. He
said that, beyond the rhetoric that fuels the speeches, we need to know
about policies and ask, "What does this mean in my life and yours?"
In an attempt to balance the budget, Congress and the president have
agreed to binding across-the-board budget cuts that will take effect unless
they are able to map out a plan with equivalent savings. Two competing
plans are under consideration. Under the plan drafted by Rep. Ryan and
supported by Republican members of Congress, federal support for Medicaid
is slated to be cut by 34 percent. Large cuts are also envisioned for
education and rehabilitation services. Mr. Dale emphasized that the choices
we have are clear, that we need to decide what we want and need; and, based
on those decisions, we must exercise our votes at all levels of government
to support the president, who is fighting for us.
He said that the president has indicated by proclamation, and will
continue to support with policy decisions, his belief that blind children
should be given Braille. Dale related his own story, in which his parents
demanded he learn the skill because his prognosis was clear, and for them
there was no choice but to raise a son who was literate. On the subject of
technology the president supports modifications to create regulations for
Section 508 that will ensure that people who work for the government have
technology usable by all, including the blind. So that we will know about
updates pertaining to people with disabilities, Mr. Dale suggested we
subscribe to a mailing list that can be reached by writing to
<disability at who.eob.gov>.
Eve Hill, a well-respected lawyer and advocate for blind people, who
now works as senior counselor to the assistant attorney general for civil
rights, stepped to the podium to deliver remarks entitled "The Policy of
Integration Enforceable at Law." Her remarks are printed elsewhere in this
issue.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Hoby Wedler]
Henry "Hoby" Wedler is a PhD candidate pursuing a degree in
computational chemistry. This past spring he was given a Champions of
Change award by President Obama. Hoby was in the first Rocket-On! Camp,
sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind and NASA in 2004, and has
since established a chemistry camp in California, where he teaches blind
high school students about science and the way they can flourish in its
study. "Making Chemistry Accessible to the Blind One Atom at a Time" was
his topic, and the clear message he sent was that observations may be
visual but science is not and that with different ways to observe come
boundless possibilities. His parents played a pivotal role in seeing that
he was treated just like his sighted brother, and, without their
expectation that he achieve, he might be living a life very different from
the challenging one he enjoys today.
Hoby's first obstacle in chemistry was to convince a skeptical teacher that
he loved what she was saying about chemistry, that he understood it, that
chemistry is a cerebral not a visual subject, and that no one, blind or
sighted, has ever seen an atom. This teacher he credits with being his
strongest ally in the honors classes in chemistry in high school and the
person who strongly encouraged him to pursue it in college. Because he was
not certain, even with all this encouragement, that he could really perform
competitively in the field he loves, he also majored in United States
history. Because he liked the mathematics used in his chemistry classes, he
minored in math.
In sharing his love of chemistry with blind students, he was dismayed to
learn that, of the twenty students he had mentored, none had any experience
in the kitchen. They and their parents believed the kitchen would be unsafe
for them, but now many of the graduates from his camp have taken to cooking
at home, and some now regularly participate in meal preparation. Hoby ended
his inspirational remarks by saying, "Imagine big! I challenge all of you
to go home, work hard, and know that your hard work and high expectations
for yourselves and the blind people around you are what is changing what it
means to be blind."
Jim Gashel came to talk about the newest technology in reading for
the blind, technology invented by K-NFB Reading Technologies. The Blio
System is used to purchase and read the same books at the same price and at
the same time for blind and sighted readers alike. Now it is possible not
only to buy books using Blio but to borrow them from the library. The
audience was impressed with the responsiveness of the system, the clarity
of the speech, and the sheer number of books now available that were
heretofore beyond the reach of blind people. Blio allows access to these
books from traditional desktop and laptop computers, from tablet devices,
and from the mobile phones many of us carry.
Monitor readers will have no trouble guessing the name of the next
presenter when they read the title "Inventions That Alter Thought." Ray
Kurzweil, the inventor of the first reading machine for the blind, came to
share with us some of the information that has gone into his book on the
functioning of the human brain. The book, entitled How to Create a Mind:
The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, will be out in November and will, of
course, be available on the Blio reader. Mr. Kurzweil related the
discussion about the anatomy of the brain to the National Federation of the
Blind's attempt to change how people feel about blindness and what they
think a blind person can do. Not only must people be persuaded to accept
the possibility we offer, but they must then begin the process of
incorporating this new and revolutionary idea into their many impressions
about blindness, about equality, and about opportunity. Complicated
concepts are found in millions of places within the brain, so it is no
surprise that minds are not easily changed. The good news is that they can
be, and a brief look at history reveals the extent to which social
attitudes can be altered with good information and persistence.
The last agenda item of the afternoon was devoted to the presentation
of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards, and a full report is found elsewhere in
this issue.
The annual banquet began at 7:00 p.m. with Dr. Fredric Schroeder
acting as the master of ceremonies. Father Gregory Paul began the evening
with an invocation thanking God for all He has done for the blind of the
country and the world, one blessing certainly being the self-organization
of the blind through the National Federation of the Blind.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Jessica Bachicha]
After food and fellowship the banquet was treated to a performance
by Jessica Bachicha Ewell of "Martern aller Arten," from Mozart's Abduction
from the Seraglio. Jessica's accompanist was Brian Bentley, music director
at the Dallas Cathedral. [audio clip 3]
The highlight of the evening was the annual banquet address delivered
by President Maurer entitled "The Intersection of Law and Love," in which
our president captured both the spirit of the Federation and the necessity
to trust in the goodwill that is felt for the blind in the general public.
Love and trust are two essential elements of our struggle to be understood
and to realize the same hopes and dreams as our fellow citizens. President
Maurer's speech appears in full later in this issue.
The thirty scholarship winners of 2012 came to the stage to receive
total awards ranging from $4,500 to more than $13,500. A report of this
presentation appears elsewhere in this issue. Ramona Walhof came to the
platform to present the Jacobus tenBroek Award, the highest honor the
National Federation of the Blind can bestow on one of its members. Her
presentation and the remarks of the winners, Pam and Roland Allen, appear
elsewhere in this issue.
Each year we come to the convention wondering what theme will
characterize our gathering. Some things we know: people of like minds when
it comes to changing the world for the better will share their hopes,
dreams, strategies, and successes. People from outside the organization
will be invited to talk about what they do and to hear from the blind
directly about what we need. Beyond this, was there something special about
this year, one consistent message that emerged? I suggest that there was
and that the message was about keeping promises, the ones made yesterday
and in the yesterdays before it. It is not enough to proclaim we will
change conditions for those making less than the minimum wage; not enough
to express our intention to get the same books at the same time and at the
same price; not enough to declare, however boldly, that we will have access
to the technology that makes up so much of what the world has to offer in
the twenty-first century. Our statements about what we believe and what we
want are only a start, for what we seek are not words of comfort but
change. Change takes time; change takes effort; change requires
intelligently focused action, taken always with the promise and the goal
uppermost in our minds. Our convention in 2012 demonstrated the staying-
power and the unwavering commitment of our members to keep the promises we
have to honor the blind of yesterday, support the blind of today, and make
a brighter future for the blind of tomorrow.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer delivers the presidential report.]
Presidential Report 2012
An Address Delivered by
Marc Maurer
National Federation of the Blind
Dallas, Texas
July 3, 2012
When the National Federation of the Blind came into being in 1940,
blind people faced almost total exclusion from meaningful participation in
society. We formed our Federation with the previously unknown proposition
that we could change these conditions-that we, blind people, could become
an integrated part of our culture through our own efforts, and we have been
pursuing this objective ever since. This past year the speed of our
progress has increased, the number of our activities has expanded, and the
complexity of our programs has become greater than ever before in our
history.
Blind people are thought to be musical, and a few of us are. Jessica
Bachicha, now married to Jason Ewell, has been blind since birth. She met
Fred Schroeder, our first vice president, who was then directing programs
for blind students in the New Mexico public school system, when she was
five. Dr. Schroeder taught her how to be an accomplished student, and he
also helped her to know that she could follow her dreams. She has become an
accomplished opera soprano. She has performed with a number of symphonies,
and she was invited to sing at Carnegie Hall earlier this year. I was
privileged to be in the audience, I heard her hit the high F from an aria
in The Magic Flute five times, and I understand that she came to the stage
proudly carrying her white cane. Dr. Jessica Bachicha will be offering us
an aria at the banquet later this week.
In an effort to gain greater access to information, we established in
2003 a project with Ray Kurzweil to build a portable reading machine, the K-
NFB Reader Mobile. Although this reading machine is currently available as
a program that operates on a number of cell phones, and, although it is the
best portable reading machine that has been developed, the project has
shifted its primary focus to an electronic book reader, the Blio, that can
be used by blind or sighted people to read digital information. Blio is a
program which runs on computers (desktops, laptops, and notebooks), on iOS
devices (iPods, iPhones, and iPads), and potentially on other types of
hardware used for reading books, magazines, or other digital content.
K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc., which owns Blio, has entered into a
cooperative relationship with Baker & Taylor, a distributor of books from
many thousands of publishers. One of the markets served by Baker & Taylor
is libraries. Baker & Taylor's digital library system, called Axis 360,
uses the Blio reading program to give patrons access to digital books. Axis
360 is an accessible library system offering blind and other print-disabled
people the opportunity to read books as effectively as sighted people do.
Using the Blio bookstore, blind and sighted people have access to three
hundred thousand books. The Axis 360 library system has only half this
number, but the program is growing, and it will soon offer as many as can
now be purchased in the bookstore.
In 1990 we attempted to create a partnership with the Association of
American Publishers to obtain equal access to the printed word. The person
then serving as its president said to our convention, "We are not in the
charity business," and he walked out of the convention hall. We have been
taking steps since that time in the legal arena, the political arena, and
the corporate arena to try to change the perception that equal access to
information is a matter of charity.
We have been urging companies to adopt systems to provide equal access
to information. Sometimes our advocacy efforts are successful, but
sometimes they are not. To promote equality of access to information, we
have, through our involvement with K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc., assisted
in the creation of the Blio reading system. If others will not promote
equal access to information, we will do it ourselves.
In September 2011, we co-hosted our second Web Accessibility Training
Day with the Maryland Technology Assistance Program. Those showing their
work in accessibility included Oracle, Adobe, the United States Access
Board, the World Wide Web Consortium, and AOL. I am not saying that all of
these entities know how to provide accessible content, but we have insisted
that they try to do so, and they were demonstrating what they know.
On December 6, 2011, the National Federation of the Blind hosted a
symposium on accessibility in publishing, and we cohosted an event on
inclusive publishing and e-book distribution with the DAISY Consortium six
months later. We became a part of the DAISY Consortium some time ago to
establish a standard which can be used to ensure equal access for the blind
and print-disabled. This standard, EPUB3, has been created, and the
Internet tools to implement elements of the standard are currently under
development. With the implementation of this standard, we will reach the
objective of the same book, at the same price, and at the same time for
print-disabled customers.
We have also conducted a two-and-a-half-day "Train the Trainers"
event. The training provided hands-on involvement with screen-access
software, Braille, DAISY e-books, and other tools. Furthermore, we have
conducted numerous other training programs in such widely separated venues
as the University of Toledo, the California State University at Northridge
(CSUN), and the Consumer Electronics Show.
At a hearing held by the United States Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions in February 2012, entitled "The Promise of
Accessible Technology: Challenges and Opportunities," Mark Riccobono
presented the point of view of the National Federation of the Blind. An
equal opportunity to education requires access to books, course materials,
research articles, and other digital material. Access to information is
nothing less than a fundamental civil right, and we insist that the blind
have as much opportunity to get it as anybody else. This is what Mark
Riccobono declared to the Senate of the United States.
Equal access to the same corpus of materials used by all other
scholars is the goal for us. Imagine a day when any blind college student
can have the same independent access to the entire library's collection
that a sighted student has. Imagine a day that a blind student can
independently search the collection for the right materials. Imagine a day
that a blind student can independently perform data mining of the library
collection. That day has arrived at the University of Michigan. However,
access to this extraordinary quantity of information for us is under
attack.
A number of years ago the Google company decided to make digital
copies of books in dozens of university libraries. A consortium of these
universities established the Hathi Trust to hold and manage the digital
copies of books that came from the Google Books Library Project. The
Authors Guild has sued the Hathi Trust, and we intervened to assist in
protecting this material. The Authors Guild wants the universities to give
up the scanned material or to agree never to use it unless a court order
permits this use. However, we believe that the universities have an
obligation to provide it to students and professors who cannot read print,
now that the material has been put into accessible form. The University of
Michigan has declared that blind students and professors have access to
this digital treasure trove, and we believe that other universities will
soon follow suit. I remember standing in the library when I was in college
wondering how I could learn all that the books had to tell me. Now, after
decades of effort, the promise of equal access is becoming a reality. Our
participation in the lawsuit will demand energy and financial commitment,
but what an opportunity has come to be almost within our reach!
The Barnes & Noble Nook is a convenient, inexpensive e-book reader,
but it is completely inaccessible to the blind. When we asked Barnes &
Noble to change this, officials from the company responded with numerous
excuses but no program to provide access to books. Now libraries are buying
them. Because they acquired inaccessible Nooks, we have filed a complaint
with the Department of Justice against the Sacramento Public Library and a
suit in federal court against the Free Library of Philadelphia, the
nation's oldest public library. We hope that these two actions will be
enough to change the behavior of libraries and the behavior of Barnes &
Noble. However, if more complaints are needed, we know how to create them
and where to have them filed. We must have books, and we will take every
necessary step to get them. Our right to an equal education and equal
access to information may not be compromised, and we are the people to
ensure that it will not be-not today, not tomorrow, not anytime.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibits the federal government
from acquiring inaccessible technology, but the government routinely
ignores this federal law. More than 90 percent of the federal agencies
examined within the last few years have failed to demonstrate complete
accessibility of their web presences, and many federal agencies buy office
machines, computer programs, and even telephones for disabled employees
that are completely inaccessible.
A few days before this convention, we learned that the State
Department is attempting to purchase thirty-five thousand Kindle book
readers to be distributed in libraries throughout the world. According to
the publicity these inaccessible products will cost the government over $16
million. We have sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to
protest this violation of the law, and a number of other actions are
underway to ensure that the State Department does not use its power to
promote the interests of those seeking to prevent disabled citizens from
having equal access to information. The Amazon Kindle has been the subject
of at least half a dozen legal actions in which we have taken part, and,
although we do not fight unless we must, if the State Department insists,
we will meet them in the court. Officials at the State Department cannot
tell us that vital American interests in international relations require
this type of discriminatory behavior; precisely the opposite is true. Our
vital American interests must be protected, and we will take every step to
see that they are.
On December 6, 2011, Congress received the Report of the Advisory
Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials in Postsecondary Education
for Students with Disabilities, which had been authorized by amendments
that we had sponsored to the Higher Education Act. Mark Riccobono served as
our representative on the Commission. It will not amaze you to learn that
the Commission found that educational materials for blind students in
college are inaccessible and that it would be helpful if they included
accessibility. If accessibility of such information for blind students and
professors is not achieved in the near future, the Commission report
recommends that Congressional action be taken. We concur with this idea,
and we will write the legislation.
On Wednesday, April 18, 2012, Senator Patty Murray from Washington and
Senator John Boozman from Arkansas circulated a Dear Colleague letter in
support of Braille instruction for blind students. This letter, addressed
to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, said in part:
In reauthorizing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA) in 2004, the intent of Congress was for Braille instruction to be
presumed appropriate for all students with blindness or a visual
impairment. However, current regulation [of the Department of Education]
does not provide school districts adequate guidance in developing,
reviewing, and revising the IEP. It has come to our attention that in some
circumstances parents and advocates request Braille instruction for their
child with blindness or low vision but meet resistance from a school-based
IEP team member. We believe this is due in part to a misunderstanding of
the needs of some students with low vision. Regardless of the reason,
Braille instruction is a crucial literacy skill which should be provided to
students with blindness or a visual impairment who would benefit from
learning Braille.
We strongly urge the U.S. Department of Education to develop new
regulations and provide additional guidance to school districts to ensure
students with blindness or a visual impairment are provided Braille
instruction when the student will benefit.
Twenty-six members of the Senate signed this letter. Although the
amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act seemed clear
to us, they have not always seemed as clear to the Department of Education
or to the school districts where the education takes place. We considered
yet additional legislation to let the educational community know how
important Braille instruction is, but Senator Murray proposed an
alternative, which may speed the process substantially. Her message is
clear-Braille must be taught. She says so, the Congress said so, the
members of the Senate say so, and we will get Braille for the students who
need it.
Our Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning (BELL) Program has
expanded to eleven affiliates in twenty locations. Our Braille Reading Pals
Club introduces Braille to families of very young blind children.
Participants (356 of them) from forty-seven states, the District of
Columbia, and Puerto Rico receive information about early Braille literacy.
Parents get a monthly newsletter and activity sheets about learning
Braille. The kids get a Braille birthday card, a new Braille book
periodically, and a Braille Pal-a stuffed animal who likes to listen while
the children read. The Braille Reading Pals Club is part of our Braille
Readers Are Leaders effort, which is now twenty-nine years old. We will be
adding elements during our thirtieth anniversary year, such as encouraging
blind children to write their own books.
In the winter we launched a new program called Early Explorers. This
early childhood program shows parents that their young blind children can
learn to travel with a cane. Blind children become much more excited about
movement and much more interested in exploration when they learn that it is
preferable for the cane to run into the wall or the door rather than having
their noses do it. The program serves children ages 0-7. We currently have
over a hundred families enrolled from thirty-five of our affiliates.
Our science training initiatives continue. At Youth Slam 2011 we had
133 students from forty-one states and one U.S. territory. The education
included chemistry, robotics, space science, biology, engineering,
journalism, computer science, nanoscience, forensics, and geoscience. In
addition we conducted a teacher track for teachers of the blind to learn
how to teach science to blind kids. Students made ethanol and built fuel
cells, constructed robots, tested phosphorescent bacteria, conducted an
experiment using a nanoscale mechanical beam with a nanophotonic cavity
sensor, and assembled skeletons.
In January of this year we conducted the NFB Teacher Leaders Seminar.
Infused with a positive philosophy of blindness, this seminar presented
best practices in teaching Braille, technology, cane travel, art, tactile
graphics, science, and methods for teaching blind students who also have
other disabilities. Some educators tell us that teaching blind students is
hard and that teaching blind students who also have other disabilities is
even harder. Such educators are correct in their assertions when they don't
know how to do it. When the educational methods are at hand, educational
programs become much easier. This is what we demonstrated at our Teacher
Leaders Seminar.
In 2011 we conducted the first public demonstration of the blind
drivable automobile. On July 22, 2011, following the conclusion of last
year's convention, our blind drivers navigated the streets around our
headquarters building in Baltimore, providing rides in our vehicles to
blind students attending the NFB Youth Slam. We continue to seek university
and industry partners who want to work on nonvisual interfaces for blind
drivers, and we met with the product manager for Google's driverless car
last spring. In June, less than a month ago, the National Federation of the
Blind participated in the 2012 Driverless Car Summit conducted by the
Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. By special
invitation the event included a presentation by Mark Riccobono about the
blind drivable car. In addition Mark Riccobono and Anil Lewis were featured
on February 28, 2012, as experts in blind driving technology, on the
Discovery Velocity Channel's AutoWeek's Vinsetta Garage program.
In April 2012 we welcomed 158 participants to the fifth annual Jacobus
tenBroek Disability Law Symposium. This gathering, named after our founding
president, who was a Constitutional scholar and among the first to write on
the subject of disability law, brings together the people with the best
minds on the subject of disability rights. The theme this year was
"Disability Identity in the Disability Rights Movement." Over eighty
academic, government, corporate, and advocacy organizations were
represented at the symposium, and students from a number of universities
attended. United States District Judge Donovan Frank, Wisconsin Court of
Appeals Chief Judge Richard Brown, and Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission Chief Administrative Judge Francis Polito provided their
perspectives on how to educate judges and attorneys about disability
rights.
We have also pursued a number of lawsuits. Henry (Hank) Miller is a
blind student living in New Jersey, who has completed the fifth grade. When
he was in second grade, his mother asked officials in their school district
to give him Braille instruction. However, the school district denied this
request. As an element of the process in appealing the denial, the New
Jersey Commission for the Blind evaluated Henry Miller. The Commission for
the Blind sided with the school district. After three years of argument a
hearing occurred before an administrative law judge that lasted nine days.
The decision of the judge covered more than sixty pages. The judge agreed
with the parents and their experts that the presumption in the law in favor
of Braille instruction means what it says. Officials of a school district
cannot refuse to provide Braille instruction to a blind child just because
they do not think he needs it. We will hold the school districts
accountable for their actions. We have a zero-tolerance policy for people
who try to deny us our education. Henry Miller gets his Braille.
The Miami Public School District summarily concluded that a blind
child matriculating there would never be able to benefit from instruction
in Braille or in cane travel. The parents of this blind child fought the
Miami School District for two years without success. We are now providing
legal assistance, and the school system has backed down. This blind girl is
now getting the education to which she has always been entitled, and she is
eagerly learning the skills that the school district thought she could
never acquire.
Last year I reported to you that we had filed a complaint against Penn
State University for its widespread use of inaccessible educational
technology. In October we reached an agreement of historic scope. Not only
is Penn State required to make its course management software, library
search software, and millions of pages on its eight thousand websites
accessible, but it must do an audit of all of its educational technology
and develop a remediation plan. In addition it must institute a buy-
accessible procurement policy. Penn State has been working hard to meet its
commitments, and we hope it can become a model for the country in providing
equal opportunity to blind students.
Last year we filed suit on behalf of two Florida State University
students, Chris Toth and Jamie Principato, against the university because
these students were required to take and pass digital math courses that
were inaccessible. We reached an agreement that requires the university to
make the math curriculum accessible, to adopt a buy-accessible educational
materials program for mathematics, and to create and implement
accessibility standards for classes in chemistry and physics. In addition
Florida State University paid each of these students $75,000 and reimbursed
the National Federation of the Blind for costs of $209,519.
This spring we learned that Sebastian Ibanez, a student at Mesa
Community College in Arizona, was kicked out of a counseling class because
he is blind. Registration forms at Mesa Community College are inaccessible,
financial aid forms are inaccessible, the login process for the computer
registration form for student aid is inaccessible, materials for many of
the classes are inaccessible, and other elements of the educational
experience are inaccessible to the blind. Personnel in the financial aid
office at Mesa will not even speak to a student who has not logged onto its
system, and they will not help a blind student log on even though the
system itself is inaccessible. We have filed suit on behalf of Sebastian
Ibanez. Mesa Community College is reported to be the largest community
college system in the United States, and it systematically excludes blind
students from the education it offers.
Just how systematic is this exclusion? Wink Harner is not blind. Until
recently she was the manager of the Disability Resources and Services
office at Mesa Community College. When she helped Sebastian Ibanez file a
complaint with the Office of Civil Rights for the Department of Education,
Mesa removed her from her job. Wink Harner cannot use her hands. Many
people with this disability use a computer system that responds to voice
commands. However, Mesa has assigned her to be a secretary, giving her a
computer that does not respond to voice. Even though she cannot use her
hands, and even though Mesa Community College knows she cannot use her
hands, Wink Harner is expected to perform her work using a keyboard. Mesa
wanted to make her pay for helping the blind seek justice. Officials at
Mesa Community College may think that it pays to bully the blind, they may
think that it pays to bully those who seek to help the blind, and they may
think that the laws requiring equality of opportunity may be ignored with
impunity, but we think that the payment should go another way, and we are
demanding that they pay for what they have done.
The battle against the National Conference of Bar Examiners to require
it to allow blind applicants to take the multistate bar examination with
screen-reader software continues. Last year, when I reported that Stephanie
Enyart had won her case against the bar examiners in the Ninth Circuit, I
indicated that the matter had been appealed to the Supreme Court. However,
the Supreme Court declined to take the case. These cases are very expensive
to bring, but we have been awarded fees and costs. In Tim Elder's case the
Bar Examiners beat us in Maryland, but we were victorious in California,
and we were awarded fees there. In the Cathryn Bonnette case we won in the
District of Columbia, and we received a fee award. In the Deanna Jones case
we were successful in federal court and in the Court of Appeals. Deanna
Jones is a member of ours from Vermont, and she is both blind and disabled
from a learning disability. Once again we received a fee award. The
National Conference of Bar Examiners has now lost in four cases, and it has
had to pay us nearly $1.5 million. However, the Bar Examiners appear to be
willing to continue the fight. Let me say it this way: do we ever have
plans for them!
The Law School Admission Council controls both applications to get
into law school and the Law School Admission Test. We have demanded that
accessibility elements be added to the LSAC website, that applicants for
the Law School Admission Test be permitted to take it using screen-access
software, and that the application process to seek admission to law school
be made accessible. Although officials of the LSAC have been willing to
make changes only after bitter confrontation, many of the alterations we
have demanded have taken place.
In the meantime we have asked the American Bar Association to help. In
February 2012 Scott LaBarre, our president in Colorado, traveled to the
convention of the American Bar Association to propose a resolution in
support of disabled Americans having equal access to the Law School
Admission Test. Although spirited testimony was offered to the effect that
equality of opportunity in taking the LSAT did not serve the interests of
American justice, our lawyers Scott LaBarre, Charlie Brown, and Dan
Goldstein were eloquent in the defense of equality for the blind. The House
of Delegates of the American Bar Association adopted the proposed
resolution unanimously.
In 2004 Aaron Cannon, a blind person living in Iowa, applied to the
Palmer College of Chiropractic to become a chiropractic doctor. After
accepting him for study, school officials refused to let him graduate
because they said he did not have a "sufficient sense of vision" to be a
chiropractor. In 2005 he appealed to the Davenport Civil Rights Commission,
and the Commission ruled in his favor. Palmer asked for an administrative
hearing, and the judge ruled in favor of Aaron Cannon. Palmer appealed to
the full commission, and in December 2010 the Commission issued a thorough
decision upholding all the previous rulings. Palmer appealed once again to
Iowa state court, and the judge reversed all the previous rulings, saying
that a chiropractor must be able to see. I have met a medical doctor who is
blind and who practices in Iowa. I have met more than one blind
chiropractic doctor practicing in Iowa. Did the court consider this
evidence? Of course it did not. We have appealed the Aaron Cannon case to
the Iowa Supreme Court. We know the evidence is clear, we know the law is
sound, and we believe that the Supreme Court will vindicate the right of
Aaron Cannon to practice-he will become a chiropractor.
Lonnie Swafford, Charla Shown, Heather Abercrombie, and Byron Sykes
are members of the National Federation of the Blind living in Louisville,
Kentucky, who work for the Veterans Administration. In the fall of 2005 the
VA decided that three of these people would be fired and one would be
limited in work assignments because the VA wanted to use technology
inaccessible to the blind. We filed a lawsuit in the United States District
Court for the Western District of Kentucky, and after years of negotiations
I am happy to report a settlement has been reached. The VA will make all of
its equipment accessible, and the government will pay monetary damages and
attorney fees.
Vicki Hodges is a blind leader of our Arizona affiliate who has been
working as a librarian assistant. When the City of Phoenix Library
Department decided to close the assistive technology center where she had
been working, it offered all other assistant librarians transfers. Vicki
Hodges got a cut in her hours and pay because the library said she could
not perform any other job because of blindness. When she filed a complaint
with the Arizona Civil Rights Division, she received a decision indicating
that there is reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred
based on blindness. The Arizona Attorney General has filed a lawsuit on her
behalf, and we have joined in the action. Vicki Hodges is a tough-minded,
capable human being. Blindness cannot stop her, but, unless we are willing
to help, misunderstanding in the form of discrimination might. We expect to
secure a position for Vicki Hodges in the Phoenix library.
When we built our new building, we established our Jacobus tenBroek
Library to house Dr. tenBroek's papers, given to us by his widow, Hazel
tenBroek. During the past year we have initiated the Hazel tenBroek
research grant program. One winner of a grant is Sushil Oswal of the
Seattle chapter of the NFB of Washington. He has already begun research
work on Jacobus tenBroek and the origins of disability rights law. Another
is Selina Mills, a blind British journalist writing a book on the history
of blindness around the world.
One of the most important assets we have is our membership. This year
we established the National Federation of the Blind Fellows Program, an
engagement that lasts a year for young Federation leaders who want to
deepen their commitment to the organization and their capacity for
leadership. Eleven Federationists are participating as Fellows for 2012.
They are learning about membership-building, fundraising, planning
conventions, passing legislation at the state and national levels, and the
kinds of activities that can inspire Federationists to build programs for
the future. Joanne Wilson, who established the Louisiana Center for the
Blind and who is serving as our executive director for affiliate action, is
managing these events.
We have been as active in the Congress this year as ever before. H.R.
3086, the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act, was introduced by
Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida and Congressman Tim Bishop of New York
on October 4, 2011. This legislation, once enacted, would phase out, over a
three-year period, payment of subminimum wages and would repeal Section
14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which authorizes subminimum wage
payments. Although the position of the National Federation of the Blind has
opposed payment of subminimum wages from the time that our organization
came into being, the current argument began last spring when we learned
that a proposed section of the Workforce Investment Act would contain
language recognizing within the rehabilitation system the practice of
paying subminimum wages. At our convention last year we demanded that this
proposed provision, Section 511 of the Workforce Investment Act, be
dropped. Because the members of the Senate committee responsible for
considering this legislation seemed unwilling to discuss the subminimum
wage provisions of the proposed law, we took to the streets. On July 26,
2011, the National Federation of the Blind, along with other supporting
disability-led organizations, conducted protests at the offices of members
of the Senate Committee to express our vehement opposition to the proposed
language. Our efforts received substantial media coverage and contributed
to bringing the consideration of this legislation to a halt.
However, we recognized that stopping recognition of subminimum wage
payments in the Rehabilitation Act was not enough, and we sought support
for the elimination of this discriminatory law in Congress. We now have
over seventy-five cosponsors of H.R. 3086. We believe that there will be a
hearing on this bill soon. Currently we have forty-seven supporting
organizations, and we are seeking more.
We have received documentation from the Department of Labor of wage
payments as low as seven cents per hour. Representatives of many of the
organizations that pay workers less than the minimum wage have told us that
they support the principles in our bill, and some of them have indicated
that the work we are doing has helped them to reexamine the positions they
have taken and to seek ways to implement a change that guarantees every
worker at least the federal minimum wage. Sometimes we are told that very
few blind people are now receiving subminimum wages, and we are asked a
question that goes something like this: "Why are you so adamant about this,
when only a hundred and fifty blind people [or three hundred, or a hundred
and twenty-five, or some other number intended to sound small] are
receiving subminimum wage payments?" Such a question is not simply
irritating; it is insufferable. Those who ask it might just as well say,
"The few people who receive the subminimum wage are not very important; why
don't you write them off?" When I hear this question, two thoughts come to
mind. First, if there are so few, why don't you pay them? If you did, the
argument would be gone. Second, before we started discussing the
unjustified, immoral, outrageous practice of dividing the workforce into
the class protected by law and the class faced with exploitation, there
were a lot more blind people being paid less than the minimum wage. Our
work has changed this, and it is going to change it further. We expect to
have no subminimum wages at all, and we expect it soon.
Public education continues to be a priority for us. During the past
year stories about us have appeared in such widely varying outlets as the
Billings (Montana) Gazette, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the
New York Times, the Boston Globe, ABC News.com, the Minneapolis Star
Tribune, the Denver Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Millions of automobiles pass our building each year. Last September we
installed a new high-tech, high-definition LED sign measuring twelve feet
by thirty-nine feet. This sign depicts our message to drivers along
Interstate 95. Fully programmable, the sign presents our message in color
with the light from four hundred forty-nine thousand two hundred eighty
light-emitting diodes. When we asked the public to join us in stopping the
exploitation of disabled workers at Goodwill Industries who are being paid
less than the federal minimum wage, the request was transmitted in vibrant
red letters on a white background.
We have collaborated at the state and national levels this year to
promote programs that create opportunity. In Mississippi a piece of
legislation drafted at our National Office was presented to the
legislature. This proposal became law because of the extraordinary efforts
of our members in Mississippi. This new law will increase education in
Braille for blind students in the state.
In Michigan the governor issued an executive order declaring that the
Commission for the Blind would be dismantled as a state agency. The
combined efforts of Federationists at our central office and in Michigan
caused the executive order to be rescinded one day before it was to take
effect. A restructuring of Michigan services for the blind is still likely
to occur, but vital services to blind people will remain in operation
because of our combined efforts.
Our NFB-NEWSLINE® program continues to expand with close to one
hundred thousand participants. Since our last convention we have developed
an iPhone application for NFB-NEWSLINE, and already more than a thousand
people are using it. We have added many new publications, including the
Jerusalem Post, the Moscow Times, and the Reader's Digest. Through this
service we provide the greatest volume of news to blind people that has
ever been available.
We continue to conduct the ongoing work of the Federation. We have
held dozens of meetings, welcoming more than four thousand six hundred
people to our headquarters building, serving them almost ten thousand meals
and twelve thousand cookies.
Our Federation came into being more than seven decades ago with a
fundamentally new idea-that blind people themselves could make a difference
in programs dealing with blindness or perhaps even in the broader
community. We started with nothing except a grand idea, an enormous measure
of hope, and a spirit of adventure. Today we have influence in Congress, we
have created precedents in the judicial arena, we have altered expectations
for our participation in the executive branch of government, we have begun
the process of ensuring that the recognition of our equal participation in
business will occur, and we have changed our comprehension of the capacity
we possess.
As I contemplate the accomplishments of the last year, I am proud of
what we are and of what we are becoming; and I am proud of what we have
done and what the future undoubtedly holds for us. Guts and judgment,
imagination and inspiration--these are what we need along with an
unshakable determination. Some may doubt that the blind of America can
summon these characteristics, but I have met my colleagues in the
Federation, and I know both the mental agility and the inner strength of
the people of the movement. Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, our first great
president, spoke during the course of his lifetime of the right of blind
Americans to be covered by the same laws that give protection to everybody
else. I have been inspired by his words, but I never met him in person. I
did know Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, our second great president, very well, and I
was supported by his strength. He would be challenged, gratified, and
uplifted by what we have done during the past year.
That we gain inspiration from those who have preceded us is true. That
we have an obligation to those who come after us is equally true. Our
history is a record that often contains restriction and denial, but the
landscape before us is quickly becoming one of our own making. The
challenges have been many, and they will not cease with the accomplishments
of today. But no matter how great they may be, we will meet them. The
misunderstanding of our being has been enormous, but this also can be
changed, and we have the tools to do it. At one time our future was
determined by somebody else, but now it belongs to us. We will shape
tomorrow with the texture that gives us freedom. This is what I have come
to know in the depth of my heart and the core of my being, this is what I
have learned from you, and this is my report for 2012.
----------
Awards Presented at the 2012 Convention of the National Federation of the
Blind
From the Editor: In the National Federation of the Blind we present
awards only as often as they are deserved. This year two were presented
during the annual meeting of the NFB board of directors and one was
presented during the banquet. In addition the Bolotin Awards were again
presented. A complete report of those presentations appears elsewhere in
this issue. Here are the reports of the educator awards and the tenBroek
Award:
Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award
Presented by Cathy Jackson
First of all, I want to thank my committee. We're like the mailman:
nothing stops us. It doesn't matter if there is a change of email address
or someone's flight is delayed and they don't get home from vacation until
a day later. It doesn't matter; the work goes on. I need to thank Allen
Harris, Carla McQuillan, Mark Riccobono, Laura Bostick (formerly Laura
Weber), and Mary Willows. Thanks, guys.
"The Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award is a very
important award that we in the National Federation of the Blind have
established because of our belief and hopes for our children. The most
precious gift we have is to improve the future for our children." This is a
quote from Sharon Maneki, past president of the NFB of Maryland and the
former chair of this committee. She spoke these words in 1992 at the
banquet as she presented this award to Dr. Ruby Ryles.
Our recipient of this year's award joins a long list of deserving
winners. She hasn't been in the field quite as long as some of the other
recipients, but, nevertheless, she is doing a yeoman's job. She has the
education and the ability to teach, but first and foremost she has the
heart, the spirit, and philosophy of a true Federationist. She is a natural
TVI. Our winner is a student of Dr. Ruby Ryles. Dr. Ryles gave her a
glowing report, and I believe it's awesome to know that the winner of the
award twenty years ago is still working in the field teaching and mentoring
and has made such a profound impression on this year's recipient.
So without further ado, I would like to present a beautiful plaque
and a check in the amount of $1,000 to Casey L. Robertson of Mississippi.
As Casey holds up the plaque, I would like to read the inscription. It
says:
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF
THE BLIND HONORS
CASEY L. ROBERTSON
DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR OF BLIND CHILDREN
FOR YOUR SKILLS IN TEACHING
BRAILLE AND
OTHER ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUES OF BLINDNESS,
FOR GRACIOUSLY DEVOTING EXTRA
TIME TO MEET
THE NEEDS OF YOUR STUDENTS,
AND FOR EMPLOWERING
YOUR STUDENTS TO PERFORM
BEYOND THEIR EXPECTATIONS.
YOU CHAMPION OUR MOVEMENT.
YOU STRENGTHEN OUR HOPES.
YOU SHARE OUR DREAMS.
JULY 2, 2012
Congratulations, Casey. [applause]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Casey Robertson]
Thank you, Miss Cathy, and thank you, Federation family. As I stand
here today, you are my family. Leaders are created by watching great
leaders, and the leaders within the NFB have made me the leader that I am.
There is a piece of each one of you in this award today. I appreciate that.
I often have people ask me, "Why do you give up so much of your time? Why
do you take so much time away from your family?" I just let them know that
this is not taking time away. This is my life. This is living. And, my
friend, if you are not doing all that you can do and if you are not
inspiring the people around you, you are not living the dream that you
should live.
My family is as much a part of my work as I am. My daughter has
traveled to many schools with me. She believes that everybody in the world
is blind and everybody can use a cane. Unfortunately, my husband is not
here today. Thankfully he is serving our country with the Army National
Guard today and is deployed. But he loves the Federation family just as
much as I do. I want to thank each of you, and remember, as I carry on,
there is a piece of you in this award and the work that I do and that you
do every day. Thank you.
----------
Blind Educator of the Year Award
Presented by David Ticchi
Good morning, board and Federationists. It is indeed a pleasure to be
here and a privilege to chair this committee. Before proceeding with this
award, I would like to thank my committee: William Henderson, MA; Sheila
Koenig and Judy Sanders, MN; and Ramona Walhof, ID.
This award was established by the National Organization of Blind
Educators to pay tribute to a blind teacher whose classroom performance,
community service, and commitment to the NFB were truly notable. In 1991 it
became a national award because of the importance and impact of good
teachers on students, on faculty, on the community, and on all blind
Americans. We present this award in the spirit of the educators and leaders
who founded and nurtured our movement: leaders like Dr. tenBroek, Dr.
Jernigan, and our current president, Dr. Maurer.
I want to tell you a little about this year's award winner. I invite
her to make her way forward to the platform, where I will present a check
for $1,000 and a plaque. The winner of this year's Blind Educator of the
Year Award is Catherine E. Mendez of New York. Cayte served in the Teach
for America Program, where she was placed in the Bronx in PS 69 in an
integrated kindergarten class of twenty-five students. She did so well that
seven years later she is still there.
Cayte is an alumna of Cornell University, where she majored in
linguistics and Asian studies. She earned a master's at Pace University in
New York City, and she has done continuing education at Columbia Teachers
College and Harvard University in standards-based curriculum and
instructional best practices. Cayte, I spoke with your principal, and the
praise and respect that she and your school colleagues have for you are
truly impressive. She told me that not only is Cayte an excellent teacher,
she is integrated into the whole school community. She carries a full load
and is always creative and imaginative. She is always working to improve
herself. In fact, this summer Cayte and her principal will be coming to the
Harvard School of Education for a seminar. As an alumnus of the Graduate
School of Education, I look forward to getting together with you there.
Cayte you are a longtime member of the National Federation of the
Blind, active at the national, state, and local levels. You are active with
the National Organization of Blind Educators. She is secretary of the New
York City Chapter and has presented at state parent and student seminars.
Here is the text of the plaque:
BLIND EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR
NATIONAL FEDERATION
OF THE BLIND
PRESENTED TO
CATHERINE E. MENDEZ
IN RECOGNITION OF
OUTSTANDING ACCOMPLISHMENTS
IN THE TEACHING PROFESSION.
YOU ENHANCE THE PRESENT
YOU INSPIRE YOUR COLLEAGUES
YOU BUILD THE FUTURE.
JULY 2, 2012
Congratulations. [Applause]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Cayte Mendez]
Cayte Mendez: I think I have heard it said that more than one person
can't keep a secret. But I think that has been completely disproven. I had
absolutely no idea. Thank you so much. I honestly don't know what to say.
If anybody here knows me, you are probably saying, "Right." It has been a
privilege and honor working with everyone here over the last eleven years--
working with Sheila and David and everyone in the educators division and
everyone in my chapter and state affiliate. Carl, I can't believe that you
guys managed to bombshell me completely with this. Thank you so much. I am
so proud to be here and so thankful. I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't do the
work that I do if it wasn't for the National Federation of the Blind. I was
inspired to become a teacher at the Atlanta convention in 2004, so none of
this would be happening without everyone here. Thank you so much.
----------
The Jacobus tenBroek Award
Presented by Ramona Walhof
Tonight it is my privilege to present the Jacobus tenBroek Award. It
is the highest award the National Federation of the Blind can bestow on one
of its own. Of course it was named for our founder, Jacobus tenBroek, a
much loved professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the
primary leader of the NFB for more than a quarter of a century. Thus this
award stands for excellence and is presented only as often as one of our
members deserves outstanding recognition. Awarded sometimes to individuals
and sometimes to couples, this honor is meaningful both to the membership
and to those who receive it. I can testify to that, having received the
award myself a few years ago.
The committee this year consisted of Joyce Scanlan, Barbara Loos, Jim
Gashel, and me. We have selected a couple who you will all agree deserve to
be honored in this way for their commitment to the NFB, their creativity,
their love, and their support for the thousands of people they have served.
They joined the NFB before they met each other. Together they are a team
whose contributions no one can surpass. They live in the southern part of
the country--yes, in Louisiana. [prolonged cheers and applause] Tonight we
have chosen to honor Pam and Roland Allen. [continued cheers] Will the two
of you come over here? [They were seated at the head table.] Pam met me at
the edge of the platform on my way up here; she had no idea.
Let me review for you their contributions. Roland Allen grew up in
New Orleans and was one of the early students at the Louisiana Center for
the Blind. He joined the Federation at that time. Then he enrolled at
Louisiana Tech University. During college he was a teacher in the summer
program of the Louisiana Center. He has become a truly gifted travel
teacher. Through the years he has taken on more and more responsibility.
Today he continues to teach orientation and mobility to blind students at
LCB, and he teaches degree candidates at Louisiana Tech University. He
trains groups of students in fitness and weight lifting and in adventure
seeking like whitewater rafting and rock climbing, and he has become a
leader in building new opportunities and setting standards in teaching
blind people and their instructors. For example, Roland has taught blind
and sighted students wearing blindfolds on New York subways; in Washington,
D.C.; in dog guide schools; and at Marti Gras-places that many consider too
difficult or impossible for the blind to negotiate independently.
Roland Allen's work is one of the reasons why Louisiana Tech
graduates are offered jobs throughout the country. He has represented the
Louisiana Center and the NFB by making presentations at meetings of the
Association for Education and Rehabilitation (AER), the Council for
Exceptional Children (CEC), and two conferences for teachers and
administrators of residential training centers for the blind, sponsored by
the Rehabilitation Services Administration, Department of Education. In
such settings you will see Roland out on the streets, working out new
travel routes for his students. Roland Allen's work has resulted in today's
blind travelers and their teachers seeking and achieving a higher degree of
independence and confidence than ever before. As a young man Roland served
as president of the North Central Chapter of the NFB of Louisiana and of
the state student division. Today he is a member of the evaluation team of
the National Blindness Professional Certification Board, which grants
national O&M certification (NOMC).
Then we have Pam Dubel Allen. Pam grew up in New York state and
discovered the NFB only after she had served in office in another blindness
student organization. She first attended a seminar for blind students in
Ohio. Then she did a college internship at the Louisiana Center for the
Blind and then worked in LCB summer programs. Pam received the NFB's
highest scholarship of $10,000 in 1991 and graduated from Dennison
University the following year. While in college Pam was elected to office
in the Ohio student division and to the board of the National Association
of Blind Students. After she graduated, she enrolled in the Louisiana
Center for the Blind. When she completed training, she was hired as LCB
director of youth services, a position she held for eight years. Her
leadership made that program one of a kind in the nation. Every infant and
toddler in the state is referred to LCB for consultation and assistance.
She established a program to train aides who work in public school
classrooms where blind children are enrolled, and she established summer
camps for blind children and youth.
After Joanne Wilson departed from LCB, there was no question that her
successor as director would be Pam Allen. Pam has continued to lead this
important NFB program as it grows and develops innovative ways to train the
blind and the sighted. She was elected president of the NFB of Louisiana in
2001 and to the national board in 2002. She has continued to be reelected
every two years since. She has served as NFB treasurer since 2006. In this
capacity she reviews NFB financial activity about twice a month. In
addition Pam serves as secretary of the National Association of
Rehabilitation Professionals. She has played an essential part in the
development of the graduate program for blindness professionals in the
Institute on Blindness at Louisiana Tech. She is a member of the advisory
board of the Professional Development and Research Institute. As LCB
director she has served on the Ruston Chamber of Commerce. The governor of
Louisiana appointed her to the state's Rehabilitation Council. Pam is a
competent, loving woman who has helped to change the lives of thousands of
blind people. When she attended an NFB leadership seminar, she hunted up
and thanked everyone who had helped with the event.
I have for Pam and Roland a plaque for the Jacobus tenBroek Award. I
want to read what it says, and then I have just a couple more comments.
JACOBUS TENBROEK AWARD
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
PRESENTED TO
PAM AND ROLAND ALLEN
FOR YOUR DEDICATION, SACRIFICE,
AND COMMITMENT
ON BEHALF OF THE BLIND
OF THIS NATION.
YOUR CONTRIBUTION IS MEASURED
NOT IN STEPS BUT IN MILES,
NOT BY INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES
BUT BY YOUR IMPACT
ON THE LIVES OF THE BLIND
OF THE NATION.
WHENEVER WE HAVE ASKED,
YOU HAVE ANSWERED.
WE CALL YOU OUR COLLEAGUES WITH RESPECT.
WE CALL YOU OUR FRIENDS WITH LOVE.
JULY 5, 2012
At the bottom is the image of Whozit. I want to say congratulations
to Pam and Roland. [cheers] We want to hear from both of them briefly.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Roland and Pam Allen]
Roland Allen: Wow. I absolutely love this organization, and I have
been so blessed to be a part of an organization that has meant so much to
me. I've been blessed with a job that I absolutely love, teaching our
students at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. I am also blessed to have
an extended family in all of you in the National Federation of the Blind. I
want to thank Ramona and all the members of the committee and Dr. Maurer. I
also want to thank Joanne Wilson, the founder of the Louisiana Center for
the Blind, who brought me to the NFB over twenty-six years ago now. This is
my twenty-sixth convention, so I've also been blessed to hear twenty-six
banquet addresses from Dr. Maurer. Thank you guys very much, and I
appreciate you all. [Applause]
Pam Allen: Thank you so much. I can't tell you how shocked we both
are and how honored and, most important, how humbled and how thankful we
are to each of you in this room. I also want to thank the committee, and I
want to thank Dr. Maurer and Dr. Jernigan, whom we both had the pleasure to
meet. Thanks to Joanne and Barbara Pierce, and so many people who took a
chance on me and on Roland. The successes we have had we share with all of
you in this room. Because of your love, your support, your belief, your
desire for equality, we have had the pleasure to work with and learn from
and grow as individuals. I am so thankful to have Roland as my husband and
my support, [applause] and to all of our many students. I am grateful that
in this room tonight at the banquet we have some of our students who were
in our infant/toddler program, at our Buddy and STEP programs, and our
adult and senior programs. We share this award with all of you in this
room. We are so honored and blessed to be members and leaders of the
National Federation of the Blind, and we look forward to continuing to make
the future bright and full of promise for all. Thank you so much.
[Applause]
Roland: I'm sorry. I forgot to say one important thing. I have also
been blessed to have a very beautiful, intelligent wife whom I love very
much. [Applause]
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Richie Flores receives his award from Jim Gashel.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Stephen King]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Arnie Wight]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Hoby Wedler holding his award stands with Jim Gashel.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Ann Cunningham]
The 2012 Bolotin Awards
by James Gashel
From the Editor: Late Thursday afternoon, July 5, Jim Gashel, NFB
secretary and chairman of the Bolotin Awards selection committee, came to
the platform to present the 2012 Bolotin Awards. This is what happened:
Jim Gashel: The Blind Doctor: The Jacob Bolotin Story, written by
Rosalind Perlman and published by Blue Point Books, is available from the
National Federation of the Blind Independence Market. Dr. Bolotin was born
in 1888 and died in 1924. Just think of that: he was only thirty-six years
old at the time of his death, but he achieved far more with far less than
most of us could do living twice as long or even longer.
Starting as a salesman selling kitchen matches, brushes, and even
typewriters door to door, Dr. Bolotin broke the mold, went to medical
school, practiced medicine, and taught medicine in Chicago during his
lifetime. All of this he did as a blind person and long before there was
even a notion of rehabilitation laws like the ones we have today. That's
why we remember Jacob Bolotin as a person of excellence with pioneering
spirit and pioneering vision. As the chairman of the NFB Jacob Bolotin
Award committee, I can tell you we keep firmly in mind pioneering spirit
and pioneering vision as our guidepost when we review applications for the
Jacob Bolotin Awards.
Funds to support these awards are made possible through the Alfred
and Rosalind Perlman Trust, which was created by a bequest to the Santa
Barbara Foundation and the National Federation of the Blind. The bequest
was granted to us by Jacob Bolotin's niece, Rosalind Perlman. This year we
have a total of $80,000 to distribute. Each of the awardees will receive a
portion of that cash along with a plaque to commemorate the award and, of
course, our thanks. Here is the text of the plaque: "Presented to [the name
of the recipient] by the National Federation of the Blind and the Santa
Barbara Foundation, July 2012." Then a medallion is affixed above the
plaque, and on the obverse the text is "The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award," with
the logo of the National Federation of the Blind below, and below that are
the words, "Celebrating achievement, creating opportunity." On the reverse
is a bust of Dr. Bolotin flanked by the years of his birth and death. Below
are the words, "Celebrating his life the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman
Trust." So that's the description of the award. Now for the 2012 Jacob
Bolotin recipients.
For our first recipient, representing organizations of excellence, we
are recognizing a particular program led by blind adults to provide
opportunities of special significance to blind youth. Although the program
being recognized has a single purpose and mission, there are actually ten
recipients sharing this award. The program they represent is Braille
Enrichment for Learning and Literacy. The total amount of the award to the
BELL Program is $30,000. This will be divided by ten states, who will each
receive $3,000. First launched in the summer of 2008 by the NFB of
Maryland, the BELL program has reached a milestone in 2012 with ten states
participating and providing services at fourteen different sites. This year
we will honor the affiliates of the National Federation of the Blind
conducting this program in Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts,
Nebraska, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia [as well as Maryland,
of course]. Because of the initiative of these state affiliates, blind
children will learn that it is respectable to be blind and it is
respectable to read Braille. Using the mentoring concept which the NFB is
very good at, blind adults will work with blind youth. Throughout the day
children will celebrate their successes by ringing the bell when they learn
Braille characters, when they learn Braille contractions, when they learn
to travel with white canes, and when they learn that alternative techniques
really work. Parents of blind children will also be trained because the
parents are the child's first teacher. When you think of reaching out to
blind youth and helping them achieve excellence, of reaching out to parents
to set high expectations for their blind children, think of the BELL
program. Here to accept the award on behalf of the BELL program --I'm not
going to let them all talk; I'd run out of time--here is Richie Flores.
Richie, here is your award on behalf of the states with the BELL program.
The checks to the states will be in the mail. [laughter]
Richie Flores: We appreciate the opportunity to accept this award.
Thank you to the Bolotin committee on behalf of the NFB of Texas and all
the other states. We all have one person that dreamed of bringing it to our
states. In Texas it was Louis Maher of the Houston Chapter who brought the
Texas BELL Program. We thank the Jernigan Institute for creating such an
awesome curriculum. In Texas we thank the teachers--Jackie Otwell, Emily
Gibbs, Tony Hurt--who helped us teach blind adults to teach the BELL
curriculum and spread it across Texas. We appreciate the leadership of our
state presidents, my best friend, my lovely wife: you helped us get to this
point. We enjoy sharing the beauty of Braille with blind children. There
are twenty programs throughout the summer. We're doing it big. It's
actually eleven states now, because Louisiana has jumped onboard. Eleven
states have answered the toll of the bell, and I encourage all you guys to
ring that bell for Braille literacy. We enjoy placing Braille in the hands
of blind children. Thank you very much. [Applause]
----------
Jim Gashel: Thank you, Richie. For our second recipient, representing
another organization of excellence, we recognize the DAISY Consortium with
an award of $20,000. Founded in 1996, the DAISY Consortium maintains,
promotes, and revises international standards for preparation of audio and
text content, known as the Digital Accessible Information System, the DAISY
standards. Although at its core DAISY makes possible the synchronization of
visually displayed text with audio text, even real audio text as I was
doing in Blio, I think the major contribution of DAISY has been its
standards leading to adding structure to large amounts of digital and audio
content. Who in this audience has not enjoyed (so to speak) trying to find
your way around text from chapter to chapter, heading to heading, even page
to page, when the audio content you were dealing with had no navigation
built in? That was before the days of DAISY. But DAISY has brought us
navigation, and in the fall of 2011 the International Digital Publishing
Forum formed an alliance with DAISY so that the DAISY standards have now
been incorporated in ePub 3. This is an event of groundbreaking
significance in publishing because it paves the way so that every
commercially distributed eBook can be an accessible eBook as well. So, when
you think of tools and technology to support mainstream opportunities for
literacy and learning for the blind combined with providing vision and
leadership, think of the DAISY Consortium. Here is Stephen King of the
Royal National Institute of Blind People and the president of DAISY to
accept the award:
Stephen King: Thank you so much to the Bolotin Award committee.
Together we can solve the book famine and end the book famine. This makes
it just a lot easier. Thank you very much. [Applause]
----------
Jim Gashel: For our third recipient, representing a corporation with
a vision of excellence in leadership on behalf of people who are blind, we
recognize Baker & Taylor, Inc., with an award of $15,000. Many of us
wouldn't necessarily think of Baker & Taylor as a household name. Baker &
Taylor is actually the world's largest distributor of physical and digital
books, movies, music, and other entertainment products. They've occupied
this position in the industry since the company's founding in 1828. Ask
anyone in the business of publishing and selling books, ask librarians, and
ask schools. They know Baker & Taylor as the industry's leading source for
books. Now in the era of eBooks, the use of warehouses and trucks to
distribute physical copies is really giving way to digital content, where
bookstores are online, libraries are online, and books are on servers and
in the Cloud. They are available to readers on computers and portable
devices.
This is a life-changing event for a company like Baker & Taylor, who
have been around since 1828. They probably started with the horse and buggy
moving these books around. But just consider what that means. As recently
as 2008 Amazon started putting books on its Kindle, and Google was scanning
the world's books. Now this year over half of the books sold have been
eBooks rather than tree books. So as an industry leader Baker & Taylor
needed a new way of doing business, so rather than turning to the
technologies they could have chosen, the inaccessible technologies they
could have chosen, they made a very smart business decision. Arnie Wight
just told you that. They chose a technology that had the capability of
providing accessibility to people who are blind. They made a deliberate
decision to do that. Blio is the only eBook solution for public libraries.
It provides now over 300,000 (Arnie told us over 365,000 titles) in our
commercial book store, far larger than any library or any bookstore
operation has ever provided in books that blind people can read. In other
words, this is the largest effort to make books accessible at the time they
are published that we have ever seen in history. When you think of our goal-
-same book, same time, and same price, when you think of courage and
standing up for accessibility for electronic books to be available to the
blind--think of Baker & Taylor. Arnie Wight, the president and chief
operating officer of Baker & Taylor, is here to accept the award.
[Applause] Thank you, Arnie, and, as I told the others, the check is going
to be in the mail.
Arnie Wight: Thank you, Jim. It's a great honor to receive this
prestigious award, but it's not something that, in terms of our development
of Axis 360 and the support of the Blio reader, can be done in isolation.
The reason we were able to accomplish this was truly our partnership with K-
NFB and our collaboration with the NFB. If it wasn't for the crew with Jim
Gashel and folks at the NFB, who were critical in giving us input into the
design and being key to the quality assurance in testing to make sure we
met all the requirements, it wouldn't have been the product it is today. So
I want to thank them. [Applause]
Jim Gashel: You know something, Arnie, you're right. We would get it
done without you, but you sure made it a lot easier. With friends like you,
we will overcome.
----------
Jim Gashel: For our fourth recipient, representing blind individuals
with pioneering spirit and pioneering vision--this is Hoby Wedler; he's
already talked for himself. I don't think you want me to stand up here and
repeat Hoby's bio because he did such a nice job. Hoby was the product of
Rocket On!, our first science academy when we were forming the Jernigan
Institute, and the rest is history. Hoby, you better step up here so we can
give you a Jacob Bolotin award. [Applause]
Hoby Wedler: Thank you so very much to the Bolotin committee for this
very kind award. I am deeply and sincerely honored to be here receiving it.
I said in my talk earlier that really what motivated me to do the chemistry
camp and to work hard for blind people is seeing how often blind people are
discouraged by low expectations. Knowing that I could study chemistry and
do well in chemistry made me feel passionately about allowing other blind
students to do that as well. I also said that the most important thing is
hard work and never giving up. I think that's very true. Only this work
that I did for the chemistry camp is something that I still enjoyed, so it
didn't feel like work at all. I also challenge you to go home, work hard,
and bring what you feel is necessary and needed in the Federation, because
we are all leaders. Thank you very much again. [Applause]
Jim Gashel: Hoby, when the check does arrive, it will be in the
amount of $10,000.
----------
Jim Gashel: Now, for our fifth and final recipient, representing
sighted individuals with visionary enlightenment and a genuine
understanding of blindness, we recognize Ann Cunningham, Denver, Colorado,
[Applause] with an award of $5,000. The view that blind people cannot enjoy
or create art that is visually appealing and also can be tactilely
appealing as well is perhaps one of the last bastions of discrimination
that we face. In fact, lots of projects do nice things for the blind around
art that provide special opportunities, but the key word is "special,"
because special often means separate. Working as a tactile artist, Ann
Cunningham first got acquainted with blind people when she came to the
Colorado Center for the Blind to teach classes beginning in 1997. Her
classes include stone carving, sculpture, tactile mapping, painting,
drawing, and lots more. Ann also travels with students to gardens, art
galleries, and museums and helps them understand that enjoyment and
creation of artistic works are reasonable and realistic expectations for
people who are blind. More than that, she has mentored many blind artists
and encouraged them to prove their skills while others are encouraging them
to go elsewhere. Ann has also taught many sighted professionals about the
techniques and tools that she uses. Her recent invention of the Sensational
BlackBoard has created a sensation itself. It is a means of employing low-
cost technology to create diagrams, graphs, and maps for blind people. When
you think of a can-do spirit and a creative problem solver, tearing down
barriers and surmounting obstacles, just saying, "Yes" when everybody else
is saying, "No," think of Ann Cunningham. Here is Ann Cunningham: As I said
to the others, your check will arrive in the mail.
Ann Cunningham: Thank you so much. So little time, so many to thank.
I would like to thank Mr. Gashel and the Bolotin committee, for your
endorsement means the world to me. I also have to thank my husband.
Everything that goes out of the door at our home, he's helped with. Thank
you, Charlie Gider. Thanks, of course, go to my NFB family. Special thanks
to Dr. and Mrs. Maurer. Mrs. Maurer has been a strong voice and an advocate
for accessible art for many years. Thanks also to Mark Riccobono. We have
worked on many projects over the years together, and we are investigating
an exciting new possibility right now. I will also always hold a special
place in my heart for Dr. Betsy Zaborowski. She was a champion for the
tactile arts. But where would I be without a home? And I have to thank the
visionary founder Diane McGeorge and the dynamic director Julie Deden, as
well as the staff at the Colorado Center for the Blind for giving me a
place to live. Most of all I have to thank the students at the Colorado
Center for the Blind for joining me in this adventure. Thank you.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: The 2012 scholarship winners (left to right):
Back Row: ShaQuantaey Mack, Cody Bair, Elizabeth Troutman, Michael Foster,
Brandon Terry, Rylie Robinson, Brandon Keith Biggs, Sierra Gregg, Monica
Villarreal, and Michael Sipes.
Middle Row: Chrys Buckley, Jennifer Shields, Christopher De Jesus, April
Spurlock, Emily Pennington, Rachael Grider, Nallym Bravo, Robert Campbell,
Briley Pollard, and Matthew Bowers.
Front Row: Valeria Paradiso, Trey Lewis, Kyra Sweeney, Brandy Woods,
Harriet Go, Stephanie O'Donnell, Jordyn Castor, Alyssa Munsell, Rose Sloan,
and Kimie Beverly.]
Meet the 2012 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class
From the Editor: With every passing year we recognize the increasing
value of the National Federation of the Blind's scholarship program to our
national organization. Members of previous scholarship classes stream back
to take part in convention activities and assume responsibility, doing
anything that they can see needs to be done, including serving as mentors
during the following year for the members of the current scholarship class.
Each July everyone looks forward to meeting the new scholarship class and
to hearing what its members are doing now and planning to do in the future.
On Thursday evening, July 5, toward the close of the banquet, Patti
Chang, the chairperson of the scholarship committee, came to the podium to
present the year's winners and announce which scholarships they had been
awarded. This year each winner shook hands with President Maurer and Ray
Kurzweil before they took their places across the back of the platform. In
addition to his or her NFB scholarship, each winner also received a $1,000
check and a plaque recognizing outstanding achievement from Ray Kurzweil
and the Kurzweil Foundation; an iPod Touch, which is able to run Blio, the
e-book-reading software available from K-NFB Reading Technologies; and a
certificate for the latest Kurzweil 1000 reading system software from
Kurzweil Educational Systems. This package of gifts added $2,500 value to
every scholarship award.
The final award was the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship of $12,000,
presented to Chrys Buckley, who then spoke briefly to the audience. Her
remarks appear later in this article.
But earlier in the week, at the meeting of the NFB board of
directors, the twenty-eight 2012 NFB scholarship winners and two tenBroek
Fellows, who were receiving their second NFB scholarships, came to the
microphone to speak directly to the Federation. Following is what they said
about themselves. Each speaker was introduced by Patti, who announced their
home and school states after each name.
Cody Bair, Colorado, Colorado: Good morning, everyone. I am Cody
Bair. I currently live in Greeley, Colorado, and attend the University of
Northern Colorado, where I will be a sophomore in the fall, majoring in
business administration with an accounting emphasis. My career aspirations
are eventually to earn a master's in accounting and become a certified
public accountant, CPA, specializing in tax, and hopefully get some
experience working for a corporation and then start my own accounting firm.
This is my second national convention, and I have really enjoyed getting to
work with all the mentors, and I feel that they have definitely helped me
develop as a young leader in the National Federation of the Blind. Thank
you, everyone, for everything that you have given to me.
Kimie Beverly, Nevada, Nevada: Hello. My name is Kimie Beverly, and I
am from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I will be starting law school in the fall
as a public interest fellow and working full time at the Office of the
Attorney General for the state of Nevada in the Bureau of Litigation,
Department of Personnel. I was first introduced to the National Federation
of the Blind in 2003 when I was awarded my first scholarship. Since that
time I've become more active with the Federation by holding five positions,
including state secretary, Las Vegas chapter secretary, legislative
coordinator, fundraising chair, and membership chair. My career aspirations
are to continue working in the Office of the Attorney General, and, after I
get my juris doctorate degree, I want to become the first blind deputy
attorney general for the state of Nevada and then from there become a
supervising deputy attorney general, and maybe a chief of one of our
departments. Thank you.
Brandon Biggs, California, California: I was told by my coach that I
would never play basketball. I didn't believe him. I was told by my theater
instructor that I would never navigate a stage safely and that I couldn't
sing. I didn't believe him. I was told by my honors astronomy instructor
that I would never pass his class without help. I didn't believe him. If
somebody tells you you can't do something, don't believe them. I was told
by a conductor that I would never sing without help in front of an
orchestra. I am getting my music degree at Cal State-East Bay, and I will
see you at the Metropolitan Opera.
Matthew Bowers, Tennessee, Indiana: Greetings, Federationists. I come
to you all today from the Dynamical Predictability Laboratory at Purdue
University, where I am currently working on my PhD in atmospheric sciences.
Eventually I intend to become a research scientist and a professor of
climatology. Through my research I want to deepen our understanding of
Earth's climate, how our behavior as humans affects it, and how it in turn
impacts our ability to survive on this planet. I'd also like to serve as a
mentor to other aspiring young scientists, blind and sighted alike. So
thank you very much for this opportunity and this honor.
Nallym Bravo, Florida, Florida: Good morning, Federationists. I am so
inspired and so honored to be here. I'm a student, a senior, at the
beautiful Florida International University, getting my degree in English.
Afterwards I intend to pursue a master's in higher education administration
and student affairs so that I can work at college campuses and work with
students on their personal development, their professional development, and
civic engagement. Right now I am a director for a nonprofit called Strong
Woman, Strong Girls. I also work in our disability resource center on
campus as a student assistant. I've had the honor and privilege to be
trusted to be on our affiliate state board as well as my local chapter
board, and also I have had the honor of serving as president of FABS
[Florida Association of Blind Students]and am currently vice president. So
I am inspired by each and every one in my scholarship class. I am excited
for this week and congratulations to my peers.
Chrys Buckley, Oregon, Oregon: Good morning, fellow Federationists. I
am the president of the Oregon Association of Blind Students and treasurer
of my local chapter. I studied premed at Portland State University with a
minor in physics. I plan to go into an MD/PhD program and specialize in
internal medicine. For work I tutor science classes including biology,
genetics, and organic chemistry. In my spare time I do a lot of creative
writing. I am really, really grateful to be here, so thank you.
The next gentleman suffered through a cancelled flight and arrived
late, so he gets the award for starting his convention most stressed out.
He is Robert Campbell, Ohio, Ohio: Good morning, everyone. I am currently a
third-year law student at the University of Akron School of Law. I am
getting ready to graduate, so I am happy about that. When I graduate, I
hope to specialize in federal income tax or secure transactions. After I
practice law for a few years, I would like to become a professor at a four-
year university, where I would specialize in federal income tax and
Constitutional law. I hope to become a scholar in that area, so that's why
I have authored three articles. Hopefully they will get published in the
upcoming year in a law review, and that's all I have.
Jordyn Castor, Michigan, Michigan: Hello, Federation family. I am a
sophomore at Michigan State University studying computer science. I hope to
be a software developer as well as to provide feedback to major companies
about the accessibility of their software. This is my fourth national
convention, and I am the president of the Michigan Association of Blind
Students, and I am deeply honored and grateful to be here today and to have
this wonderful opportunity. Thank you.
Christopher De Jesus, New York, New York: Good morning, everyone. My
name is Christopher De Jesus. I will be majoring in psychology and premed
in the fall as a junior. I aspire to get my MD degree as well, and I hope
one day to serve the military veterans coming back from active duty. On my
down time I play beep baseball, so I know what it means to be part of a
team, and I truly believe that, in order to change this world for the
better, all of us need to cooperate as a team, and I look forward to doing
that as a psychiatrist. Thank you very much for this opportunity.
Michael Foster, New Jersey, Pennsylvania: It's such an honor to be
here with all of you today. I am a rising senior at the University of
Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business, studying finance. Last summer I
interned at TD Bank working as a credit analyst. This summer I am interning
at Google in Mountainview, California. It's an amazing experience. I love
it so far; it's the summer of a lifetime exploring San Francisco. It is an
honor to be here. Thank you so much.
Pennsylvania has two in a row. This one is a tenBroek fellow,
Harriett Go, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: Good morning, fellow
Federationists. I enjoy teaching children. It has always been my passion.
When I was an undergraduate student, though, preparing to enter the student
teaching of my degree program, some people believed that, because I am
blind, I wouldn't be able to handle my duties as a teacher. They tried to
take my assignment away. Both the university and the partnering elementary
school wanted me not to participate, and they asked me to describe how I
would handle certain classroom situations without first giving me a chance
to try. However, with the support of my family and my friends in the
National Federation of the Blind, I got through that difficult and
discouraging time in my life. For that I will always be grateful. Today I
am a seven-year veteran of the school district of Philadelphia, teaching
elementary special education students. [Applause]
Sierra Gregg, Missouri, Missouri: Good morning. When I was a little
girl, my mother told me, "Grab hold of every opportunity that comes your
way, and never ever let it go." Over the past few years I've done just
that, traveling to Washington, D.C., for an internship at the National
Archives two summers in a row, proposing, organizing, and promoting a
disabilities resource webpage that will be uploaded on the National
Archives website sometime this month. But, above all, I believe that the
decision to come to my very first national convention has been and
continues to be the best opportunity of my life.
Rachel Grider, California, Maryland: Hi. I am so excited to be here
today. I am a master's student at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and I
am getting a double master's in vocal performance and theory pedagogy. I am
going to teach theory at a college. This is my first national convention. I
am very excited to be involved with you guys. I joined a couple of
committees last night of the student division, and I am excited to join
more committees. Thank you for having me.
Brandon "Trey" Lewis, Oklahoma, Oklahoma: Good morning. I am a
student at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma. I am
getting a degree in music and business to pursue a career in being a talent
agent. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
ShaQuantaey Mack, Georgia, Georgia: Good morning, my Federation
family. I am currently a student at the University of Georgia pursuing a
master's in social work. I also serve on the Georgia Association of Blind
Students board. I am here today because several members of the NFB saw
something in me that I didn't see in myself, and they decided to take a
chance and roll the dice on me. This convention has presented several
firsts for me: first time winning a national scholarship and the first time
in the wonderful state of Texas; and I am enjoying myself immensely. I'm
honored to be a 2012 NFB recipient. Thank you.
Alyssa Munsell, New Hampshire, Massachusetts: Good morning, everyone.
I graduated from Keene State College. I have a BA in psychology and a minor
in criminal justice, and I graduated with a 3.8 GPA. I am going to be going
to Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, to get my master's degree in
social work, and I chose social work because I want to dedicate my life to
being a strong advocate in achieving security and equality for everybody
that I work with hopefully. Thank you very much. I look forward to meeting
all of you.
Stephanie O'Donnell, New Hampshire, New Hampshire: I would like to
thank Dr. Maurer, the board, the scholarship committee, and the NFB for
having me and showing me great wisdom and leadership. I go to Keene State
College in Keene, New Hampshire. I am majoring in elementary education. I
cheerlead there. I am also a resident assistant. I hope to go on to
graduate school and do either special education or higher education working
in disability services, because I believe all children deserve an equal
opportunity within education. Thank you.
Valeria Paradiso, New York, New York: Good morning, everyone. I am
attending Hunter College in Manhattan, and I am currently double majoring
in psychology and premed studies with a double minor in creative writing
and classical music. I hope to go on to med school. I'd like to go into
psychiatry or other branches of medicine, maybe pediatrics. I've thought
about teaching on the college level. I teach Braille. I teach Nemeth, the
music code, encourage both sighted and visually impaired individuals to
learn. I work closely with the chief of the NLS Library. I am very honored
to be here, learning a lot, and this will certainly not be my last
convention. Thank you for having me.
Emily Pennington, Ohio, Ohio: Good morning, board members and fellow
Federationists. I recently graduated from high school with a GPA of 4.271,
and I plan on attending Xavier University to pursue a major in accounting,
a masters in business administration, and ultimately go to law school. Even
though I don't have nearly the experience that a lot of my fellow winners
have, because I haven't even gone to college yet, I aspire in my academics,
my personal life, and in my future career to be an ambassador to blind
people and show that my disability does not limit what I do. I work very
hard, and I try to do everything as best I can. Thank you all for having
me.
Briley Pollard, Virginia, Virginia: Over the past year I have too
often heard bright young people say to me, "I want to learn Braille, but
the school system said, No." I stand here today as a graduate student at
George Mason University studying education policy because of a mother who
fought for Braille; Barbara Cheadle, who taught her how; and blind people
like Pam Allen who have modeled for me what it means to push for what you
want, for change with dignity and grace. It is my turn to be that voice for
change for children and adults who have none. Thank you so much for this
opportunity.
Rylie Robinson, Indiana, Indiana: Wow! I am so excited to be here. We
are changing what it means to be blind right here in this room. Sometimes
it is hard to define what it means to change what it means to be blind. Can
it start with the individual? Well I believe that it can. I will be a
sophomore at the University of Indiana--Purdue University Indianapolis
majoring in secondary English education, and my goal after graduating from
there is to get certification in the education of blind students. Changing
what it means to be blind can start by instilling potential in the hearts
of blind students. This is where my passion lies. After attending the
Louisiana Center for the Blind, I realize that one of the many issues
facing blind students today is Braille literacy. I know that working with
middle school and high school students in the public schools will be
difficult, but I am up for this challenge. Changing what it means to be
blind is also on the organizational level. This is where I would like to
thank those who made it possible for me to be here. I am proud to be a
scholarship winner, and I am honored to help all of you in the NFB change
what it means to be blind. Thank you so much.
April Scurlock, Arkansas, Arkansas: Good morning, guys and gals. I am
currently a fifth- and sixth-grade math teacher of middle school, so yes,
Riley, it is difficult, I promise you. I am working on my master's degree
to teach special ed for grades four through twelve. I'm not sure how I feel
about the high school, but I will deal with that later. Yeah, I'm a little
nervous. I'm a wife, a mother of two (twelve and fourteen). I am busy all
the time; I don't rest. That's part of life, I guess, as we get older. I'd
just like to thank everyone. I can't believe I'm standing here. I'm just
excited.
Jennifer Shields, Virginia, Virginia: Hello, fellow Federationists.
This is my fifth national convention. I have just graduated from high
school, and in the fall I will begin my freshman year at Christopher
Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, where I will be studying
English. I hope to become a children's book author, and I want to be an
editor for a publishing company. I hope that, by doing so, I will help
children understand the value and the importance of literature in their
lives, whether they are blind or sighted. Thank you for this opportunity.
Michael Sipes, Missouri, Louisiana: Good morning, or as they might
have said in ancient Rome, salvete. I plan to go on down to Tulane
University to study law. About six weeks ago I graduated from the
University of Missouri with two degrees: one in classical languages, as you
might have guessed, and one in American history. I am proud to say that I
graduated Summa Cum Laude, and I was also the president of a fraternity
there, Delta Alpha Pi, the Beta Beta chapter, and we worked to recognize
the accomplishments of all disabled students. I was also the vice president
of the Mizzou Sight Club, in which we worked with local high school
students in trying to steer them toward a college education. I am very
happy to be here, and I want to thank you for having me. Good luck to
everyone.
Rose Sloan, Illinois, Illinois: Hello, everyone. My name is Rose
Sloan, and I am a senior at Northwestern University, where I study social
policy. I hope to become an advisor or advocate of education policy one
day. I have had many experiences with these types of things, and I just
think it's a path I want to go down. I had an internship in Washington,
D.C., last summer, and this summer I will be working for a state senator in
Illinois. In my spare time I love to do gymnastics. I am the president of
the Northwestern Club Gymnastics team. I also serve as the vice president
of the Illinois Association of Blind Students. Thank you so much for having
me here. I'm having a great time.
Kyra Sweeney, California, California: Hello, everyone. It's so great
to be here at my lucky thirteenth national convention. This fall I'll be
starting my freshman year at the Pomona College in Claremont, California,
where I will be majoring in English and psychology. I'm considering a
career in either psychology or public interest law. My main goal is to be
able to make a positive difference in people's lives, much like the NFB has
done for mine.
Brandon Terry, Utah, Utah: Good morning, my Federationist family. I
stand here truly humbled in the greatness. I am so grateful for everything
that has gotten me to this point in my life, the NFB being one of the very
strong things in my life supporting me. Only recently I have been elected
as Utah Association of Blind Students president. It's a wonderful
opportunity, and I am so grateful to serve. I'd just like to say that I am
so excited to be graduating in next December and will be rolling into a
career as a successful young manager in the construction industry. Thank
you.
Elizabeth Troutman, North Carolina, North Carolina: Good morning. My
dream is to reshape American public education so that all Americans can
have the knowledge and skills they need to define their own lives. I
graduated with honors from Princeton University. I've worked on
legislation, advocated for children's rights, and served on community
boards. Currently I am second in my class at the University of North
Carolina School of Law. At this same time I am pursuing a master's in
public policy at Duke University and giving my heart and patience to my
almost two year old. I stand on the shoulders of those who have fought
before me and those whose insights I draw on today, and I am ready to lift
up the next generation on our shoulders.
Maria "Monica" Villarreal, Texas, Texas: Echoing the voice of my
state president, "Howdy, Ya'll." I currently live in Austin, Texas, where I
go to the University of Texas. Go Longhorns! I am currently pursuing a
double major in political science and American studies, and I will be a
junior next fall. I have a great interest in advocacy and public policy,
and I am currently interning in Washington, D.C., under the director of
public policy and advocacy for the nongovernmental organization called Safe
Kids Worldwide. I intend to become a lawyer and pursue my interest in
advocacy and public policy. I am truly honored to be here, and I thank all
of those who made it possible.
Brandy Wood, Alabama, Alabama: Hello. I attend Auburn University in
Alabama, and I am majoring in rehabilitation and disability services. I
intend to go on to get a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling and
teaching. My free time? I don't have any. I have a husband and two children
also, so they are it. This is my first national convention, and I am really
excited to be here. Thank you.
On Thursday evening, July 5, toward the close of the banquet, Patti
Chang presented this year's scholarships. Then Chrys Buckley, winner of the
Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship, came to the podium to speak a few words. This
is what she said:
[PHOTO CAPTION: Chrys Buckley]
Hi, everyone. I want to thank everyone in the Federation and
especially the people on the scholarship committee for believing in me. I
feel really, really honored to be a part of this scholarship class.
Everyone has been welcoming and genuine and inspiring. I think we're all
going to go on to be leaders and do great things with our careers. I'm also
really thankful for all the mentoring I received this week from the
assigned mentors, and also from people throughout the Federation. I feel
these lessons will stay with me for a long time, and I think we've all made
connections that will last for years to come. In the fall I will be
starting my last year as an undergrad, and then this time next year I'll be
applying to MD/PhD programs, so I think this scholarship will be a
tremendous help in achieving my dreams. The only thing I think of to say is
thank you so much. [Applause]
Following is the complete list of 2012 scholarship winners and the
awards they received:
$3,000 National Federation of the Blind Scholarships: Cody Bair, Brandon
Biggs, Nallym Bravo, Robert Campbell, Jordyn Castor, Christopher De Jesus,
Michael Foster, Sierra Gregg, Rachel Grider, Brandon Trey Lewis, Alyssa
Munsell, Valeria Paradiso, Emily Pennington, Briley Pollard, Rylie
Robinson, April Scurlock, Jennifer Shields, Michael Sipes, Rose Sloan, Kyra
Sweeney, and Brandy Wood
$3,000 Charles and Melva T. Owens Memorial Scholarship: Stephanie O'Donnell
$5,000 Larry Streeter Memorial Scholarship: Harriet Go
$5,000 National Federation of the Blind Scholarships: Kimie Beverly,
Matthew Bowers, and Monica Villarreal
$7,000 National Federation of the Blind Scholarships: ShaQuantaey Mack and
Brandon Terry
$10,000 (NFB) Marvin and Mimi Sandler Scholarship: Elizabeth Troutman
$12,000 (American Action Fund) Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship: Chrys Buckley
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: President Maurer delivering the banquet address]
The Intersection of Law and Love
An Address Delivered by
Marc Maurer
at the Banquet of the Annual Convention
of the National Federation of the Blind
Dallas, Texas
July 5, 2012
We in the National Federation of the Blind have known for well over
half a century that the task before us is to alter the status quo both for
the blind and for the society in which we live. We can achieve equality
only if we believe in our fundamental worth and if we take steps to ensure
that the society of which we are a part shares this belief.
If a group of disenfranchised individuals wishes to be accepted as
part of the broader culture, at least in some respects it must come to be
admired, and certain representatives of that group must themselves behave
in such a way that they also can be the subject of admiration. Théophile
Gautier, the French writer, has said, "To love is to admire with the heart;
to admire is to love with the mind." Thus admiration denotes love. However,
an added element of this admiration is a tension, an uneasiness, an
apprehension that the person or organization being admired may present a
challenge, a demand for altered patterns of thought or behavior, a threat
to the status quo.
In 1532 Niccolò Machiavelli said, "It is desirable to be both loved
and feared, but it is difficult to achieve both, and, if one of them has to
be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved." He was speaking of
the political processes required for governing a kingdom, and a substantial
element of his argument was intended to avoid revolution. Such sentiments
may be true to maintain the status quo, but pursuing a true equality-
altering the fabric of society to accept disenfranchised groups-demands a
different set of principles. Rather than relying on fear, this attempt at a
recognition of human capacity and value requires the exact opposite-a
reversal of the Machiavellian creed-a reliance not on fear but on love.
The United States became a nation by declaration of the Continental
Congress, which stated that the establishment of our country was based upon
"the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." This would seem to be a very
powerful combination, but it did not prohibit slavery, and the Constitution
(which was written eleven years later) was itself insufficient, at the time
of its adoption, to do so. Much of the argument about human equality which
arose from the debate over slavery in the United States was founded upon
natural law. No consistent uniform agreement exists about the meaning of
natural law, but three bases for it recur. These are a comprehension of
justice given meaning by experience and the nature of human beings, the
development of custom over time, and the inspiration of God. The English
philosopher John Locke wrote that "Man being born . . . with a title to
perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and
privileges of the law of nature . . . hath by nature a power, not only to
preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the
injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches
of that law . . . ." Thus, according to Locke, human beings are not merely
governed and controlled by law, but participate in the creation and
implementation of it. A variant of the Locke assertion was incorporated in
the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. These
documents, which are bedrocks of American law, derive their authority from
"the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," or from the people, who,
according to Locke, derive their authority from the law of nature.
What are the natural characteristics of human understanding and
behavior that underlie and support natural law? What in the essence of God
creates obligation? What is the substance that makes people believe in
fairness, justice, or equality? Among the characteristics that naturally
occur in humanity are many that we know from personal experience-fear,
greed, apathy, cowardice. However, the ones we admire have other names-
courage, generosity, faith, love. No one of us can summon at will each of
the characteristics in this second group, but all of us have known them at
times, and most of us admire those who seek them.
Recently Pope Benedict XVI wrote an encyclical entitled "Deus Caritas
Est"-God is love. The common characteristic between the laws of nature and
of nature's God is arguably the experience of love. Although the law
possesses many characteristics worth criticizing, its fundamental source of
power may be its reliance upon and its wish to express the experience of
love. That law and love have anything whatever to do with each other is not
often expressed. However the interesting parts of law deal with the nature
of justice and the wish to ensure equality for all. This idea has a
persistent appeal which cannot easily be justified by arguments in other
realms. How the appeal is interpreted changes with time and circumstance,
but the fundamental nature of the appeal remains strong. It must find its
source in the human heart.
Many will offer the opinion that society is governed by aggression or
a competitive spirit and not by generosity. In 1859 Charles Darwin wrote On
the Origin of Species, which has been interpreted to mean that the fit
survive while others die-that the principle governing social interaction or
growth is competition for scarce resources-a person can win only if that
person is bigger, faster, meaner, or more intelligent than all others in
the competition. However, in 1776 Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations.
His book recommended that recognition be given to the value of the nation
based upon the productive capacity of its people and the ability they
possess to cooperate with one another in creating products that are the
basis for wealth. Modern game theory has supported the argument that
cooperative endeavor to reach a goal is more productive than selfishness.
From the time of the beginning of the National Federation of the
Blind, we have been seeking equality of opportunity. Many have believed
that we, who are a minority, must gain equality by obtaining it from
somebody else-by demanding that we be given this right by sighted people
who are in possession of our equality and have been denying it to us.
However, if justice incorporates the notion of love, we cannot get it
solely by insisting that it be ours-though this may be a necessary element.
Nobody gets love by demanding it. It comes to those who behave in such a
way that they can interact with others in a loving spirit. It comes to
those who are willing to give it to others. This means that we are not
separated from the equality we seek. We are not controlled by others. We
participate in the mechanism of gaining our own freedom. We are worthy of
admiration, and we, along with others, have come to recognize this truth.
We welcome our colleagues and friends who have joined us in celebrating the
accomplishments of the blind. For those less perceptive we have a message
and a challenge. We have the ability to inspire respect and sometimes
emotions beyond respect. We will participate in the creation of our own
freedom, and we will not let anybody forget who we are.
How easy is it to admire blind people? Some blind folk make it more
difficult than it would be without them. An article dated April 29, 2008,
which appeared in the National Law Journal tells the story of a blind
lawyer charged with fraud for paying himself and his friends more than $6
million from a health insurance company while the company was becoming
bankrupt. The story says in part:
A federal judge in Louisiana has ruled that Barry Scheur, a managed care
executive who is an attorney and is blind, is competent to stand trial in
the government's case that alleges fraud and conspiracy in the management
of a now-defunct health insurer. Scheur, a Yale Law School graduate and
former partner at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae, along with two other
former executives are charged with unlawfully paying themselves $6.1
million and misleading the Louisiana Department of Insurance into believing
that the insurer . . . was operating in the black. Scheur's attorney, James
A. Brown . . . had argued that Scheur was unable to read and comprehend the
financial statements that are the heart of the government's case. "He has
been totally blind since birth," Brown said. "He is not in a position to
assimilate these financial documents."
This is what the National Law Journal reported, and, although the
press sometimes exaggerates, I have reason to believe that this story is
accurate. Before the case went to trial, a lawyer for Barry Scheur called
to ask that the National Federation of the Blind intervene to persuade the
judge that his client, because of his blindness, did not have enough on the
ball to understand the documents. Can you believe it? Some lawyer wanted me
on behalf of you to say that blind people (even those trained at the Yale
Law School) are incompetent to understand documents. What insufferable
gall! Any executive working under my direction who expresses the sentiment
that the executive cannot comprehend documents essential to the business
will have an exceedingly short tenure. Blindness and intelligence are not
coextensive. I have met some dumb blind people, but blindness didn't make
them that way. The Barry Scheur argument is an unvarnished flimflam. The
outrage is intensified by the sheer idiocy of the attempt. Those who lie
should at least try to make the stories they tell plausible. Barry Scheur
has been convicted. Perhaps his experience of the law does not remind him
of love. If it does, it will be the sort known as "tough love."
It may be worth reporting that, at a dinner I was hosting some years
ago, Jim Gashel (then our director of governmental affairs and now our
corporate secretary) invited Barry Scheur to step outside to settle an
argument they were having. Although I prevented the brawl, I think Jim
Gashel would have acquitted himself well if he had been permitted to
address himself to the argument with his fists.
A phenomenon reappearing in the United States from time to time is
currently denominated "Dining in the Dark." Those who conduct these events
bring sighted people together to enjoy a meal served in a darkened room.
Sometimes blind people are invited to participate. In some formulations of
the event, the blind people serve as escorts and waiters. In some events
the blind people join the sighted at table to talk with sighted diners
about the experience of being blind and to serve as role models. Often a
considerable quantity of wine is served with much commentary about avoiding
accidents such as spilling the wine, spreading the food across the table,
and becoming overfamiliar in the dark with other diners. Sometimes dinner
is served in a lighted space, but the diners are blindfolded. This permits
sighted people to peek, and waiters to serve who are not required to learn
anything about managing without light.
The notion of blindfolding sighted people so that they can learn about
blindness is not new, and it is frequently a harmless novelty, although
comments about alterations in the senses or sensibilities of blind people
are repeated. Some folks tell us that we enjoy our dinners more than
sighted people do because the lack of the visual sense enhances our taste
buds. Occasionally Dining in the Dark is actually intended to expose diners
to the experience of blindness. However, the name is frequently associated
with fundraising conducted for the purpose of persuading sighted people
that they should contribute money to research programs involving the search
for cures for ailments that cause blindness. When the objective is to
encourage sighted people to know about blindness and when the instruction
is competent, the experience can be positive. When exploitation of the fear
of blindness becomes the primary motivation, harm is the result.
The Tampa Bay Times reported on March 10, 2010, that a foundation
dealing with blindness conducted Dining in the Dark to raise $100,000. Did
the sighted participants learn that blind people are normal, that the
experience of being blind need not be scary, and that the blind have value?
Not exactly. The Tampa Bay Times said, "For those assembled, a half hour in
the dark was a humbling, and bumbling, reminder of the magnitude of the
gift of sight." One of the participants who spoke to the assembled
gathering is the mother of two children who have been diagnosed with an eye
condition which will probably cause blindness in the future. Her message
was the tragedy of blindness and the urgency of raising money for research
to prevent it. She would agree wholeheartedly with the adjectives
"humbling" and "bumbling" used by the Tampa Bay Times. She does not want
her children to spend a lifetime with no choice except bumbling humility.
Although the occurrence of blindness can be a tragedy, it need not be.
However, nobody in the room offered this point of view, spoke of the
productivity of blind people, or recounted the dramatically positive
experiences many of us have had. This mother came to the event,
participated in it, and departed believing that the future for her children
contains nothing but tragic pain.
One of our members, Nijat Worley, who is at this banquet tonight, and
who decided to be a part of the Dining in the Dark experience in Los
Angeles, was told that he was prohibited from bringing his cane into the
dining facility where the event was taking place. Apparently he (a blind
person) might look too normal or too competent to fit the distorted image
that the fundraisers had in mind. They did not want our member to share the
spotlight with them. They did not want a blind person to be admired. They
wanted all the admiration for themselves and their so-called expertise in
the subject of blindness. I did not ask Nijat Worley whether he intended to
teach these people about the law. Those who deny blind people the
opportunity to participate fully in a public event using their travel aids
are violating nondiscrimination principles of the law. Dining in the Dark
may want us to believe that our primary value consists in frightening
people into digging into their wallets, but we know better. The value we
possess is sufficient to inspire admiration. For those who do not recognize
this truth, we have a message and a challenge. Our rights and our lives
have as much value as theirs, and we will never let them forget who we are.
On March 6, 2012, Forbes magazine printed an editorial claiming that
hiring disabled workers would place an unconscionable burden upon
employers. Of course Forbes did not review the history of employment of
such workers. When the National Federation of the Blind was formed in 1940,
almost no blind people were at work. Currently the estimate is that perhaps
as many as 30 percent of the blind who are seeking employment are working.
However, this same statistic was often quoted in the early 1970s. Have the
employment opportunities for the blind not improved in the last forty
years?
In the 1950s, through action in Congress and the courts, the National
Federation of the Blind caused federal employment to become available to
the blind. In the 1950s and 1960s Federation principles were first applied
to rehabilitation programs, which dramatically improved placement rates for
blind job seekers in competitive employment. In 1973 the Rehabilitation Act
contained nondiscrimination provisions dealing with certain types of
employment for the first time, and in 1990 the Americans with Disabilities
Act expanded coverage of the law to the employment of disabled workers. If
the law has any power to modify human behavior, these nondiscrimination
provisions should have changed employment prospects for the blind. However,
the 70 percent unemployment rate remains the estimate today.
In an attempt to create a positive environment for the employment of
disabled workers, the United States Department of Labor has recently issued
a proposed rule to require that 7 percent of the workforce for those who
are serving as contractors for the federal government must be selected from
among the disabled, and 2 percent of the workforce must be selected from
workers with severe disabilities. The editorial writer at Forbes magazine
is outraged. He begins with the proposition that any requirement to hire
disabled workers might simply be an added cost of doing business. The
message of the editorialist is that disabled employees cannot be expected
to be productive. Consequently, being required to hire them is just one
more cost of being a federal contractor. However, the real outrage
expressed in the article-the unbelievable imposition on business contained
in the Labor Department proposed rule-is that the Labor Department is not
willing to accept having "the handicapped" serve in make-work jobs for the
purpose of satisfying the regulatory scheme. The Department of Labor
expects these "handicapped" workers to be employed at all wage levels "to
make sure the handicapped are evenly apportioned throughout an
organization."
I can just imagine the thought processes involved with this editorial
writer and his friends as they contemplate the implications of the
regulation. As I imagine the conversation, it would probably go something
like this:
How awful! Employers are going to have to have some of them in the front
office. If they would just stay in the low-paid dead-end jobs that make up
the cost of doing business with the federal government, where they belong,
the handicapped might be tolerable, but they want to come right into the
front office suite. They'll probably bring their white canes, their blind
dogs, their wheelchairs, their crutches! They'll look funny; they'll mess
up the décor. How awful!
Although Forbes magazine believes that hiring disabled people is bad
for business, what is the basis for this assertion? Perhaps they should try
it before they reject the proposition out of hand. They say they don't like
hiring the handicapped, but how can they tell? They have never tried it to
find out.
The irony is that major employers have used the work of blind people
(and those with other disabilities) without hiring the people whose work
has benefited them. For example, in the early 1970s a sheltered workshop in
Evansville, Indiana, had a contract to produce material for the Whirlpool
Corporation. Tens of thousands of items were made effectively and
competently for Whirlpool by blind people. However, Whirlpool did not pay
them. Instead it employed the workshop to make the products. The sighted
managers of the workshop, being given executive-scale salaries, paid some
of the employees less than the federal minimum wage. Whirlpool got the work
cheap, and the blind helped make the workshop bosses rich.
However, that was forty years ago. Does the exploitation continue
today? As members of the National Federation of the Blind know, we have
been trying to get Congress to pass legislation prohibiting payment of
subminimum wages. Managers of sheltered workshops have been telling us that
conditions are better today than they were in the past. Are they telling
the truth? Although a number of blind people working in workshops receive
wages substantially above the minimum guaranteed by federal law, this law
does not apply to sheltered employment. When we asked the Department of
Labor to give us detailed information about the payments being made to
disabled workers, we received documents telling us that in 2011-less than
one year ago-a person described as an "employee" in a workshop in Fort
Wayne, Indiana, was receiving wage payments of seven cents an hour.
What is the effect of these nondiscrimination laws about which Forbes
magazine makes such great complaint? Are disabled Americans becoming
employed in positions of authority in which they can make policy decisions?
How many people with disabilities are now serving as judges? How much
effort has been made to encourage individuals with disabilities to be a
part of the legal profession? When the National Conference of Bar Examiners
encounters a blind candidate seeking to take the bar exam, what kind of
welcome do they offer? When the Law School Admission Council learns that
blind people want to apply for law school, to use its website, or to take
the law school admission test, what do the officials do to make these
things happen?
The number of disabled people serving in the judiciary is tiny; the
behavior of the National Conference of Bar Examiners regarding applications
from blind law school graduates is obstructionist; and the Law School
Admission Council has effectively taken the position that no blind person
need apply. However, they can't lock us out forever. Because of our work
the Law School Admission Council has changed many of its practices; and, in
the confrontations with the National Conference of Bar Examiners, we have
won overwhelmingly. The arguments are not yet complete, but we never give
up. Sometimes we lose a skirmish; occasionally we lose a battle; but we
never lose the war-because it is never over until we win.
The lawyers are supposed to enforce the law, including
nondiscrimination law. However, many of them (and many of the judges before
whom they appear) know nothing whatever about disability, the capacity of
disabled people, or disability discrimination. When the cases involving
blind people seeking employment are brought before the courts, is it any
wonder that well over 90 percent of them are lost? What other reasons are
there that nondiscrimination law is often ineffective for the blind? Try
the attitudes in Forbes magazine. They do not want us in the front office,
but we have a measure of control over the question of what we are and what
we will become. Part of the time we help to create the law, and, when we
have created it, we help to ensure that it is enforced. Disenfranchised
groups that wish to become a part of the broader community must come to be
admired, but admiration requires respect. Danger must be an element of
becoming the subject of admiration, and we are creating it. We know our
value, and we will never let them forget who we are.
Although some places do not welcome the blind and although some people
do not value the methods we use for gaining information, some do. A story
dated January 16, 2012, from the Los Angeles Times says, in part: "In South
Africa, restaurant chain Wimpy is welcoming blind customers-by serving them
burgers with words in Braille spelled out on their buns with sesame seeds."
Wimpy's is using Braille for advertising purposes to promote its corporate
image, to let people know that Braille menus are available in its stores,
and to attract potential customers. Several blind organizations have been
encouraged to let their members know about Wimpy's Braille program, and it
is estimated that eight hundred thousand blind people have learned about
the Braille messages. Although Wimpy's is advertising itself, it is also
advertising us-saying that we are welcome, proclaiming its incorporation of
Braille into its programs, and encouraging us and others to know that blind
people will be a part of the ordinary commerce provided by Wimpy's.
Another place where blind people are welcomed is at the Railey Field
baseball stadium in Sacramento, California, home of the River Cats, a farm
team for the Oakland A's. Tiffany Manosh, one of our leaders from
Sacramento, California, who is also with us at this banquet tonight, says:
"On September 10, 2011, . . . the River Cats, [who had] won the Southern
Division, were in the playoffs. . . . It was an event I will never forget.
. . . A member of the [River City] chapter had arranged for me to throw out
the Ceremonial First Pitch of the game. . . . As I walked out to the mound
with a member from the River Cats organization, she asked me how she could
assist me. I asked her to just walk with me to the mound and then line me
up so I was straight in line with the catcher. The PA announcer announced
to the sold-out crowd on hand that tonight's Ceremonial First Pitch was
from the National Federation of the Blind and then announced my name. With
my cane in my left hand and the ball in my right, I threw the ball to the
catcher. It made it all the way to the catcher but hit the ground as it
reached the catcher. After I threw the ball, the catcher then walked out to
the mound and handed me the ball I threw to him. What an amazing evening,
and to top it off the River Cats won the game!"
Being admired by the announcer and by the members of her chapter,
Tiffany Manosh participated in a sport she loves-on her own behalf and on
behalf of the National Federation of the Blind. She was not told to wait
for another day or another year; she was not told that she was not good
enough to share the experience; instead she was invited onto the pitcher's
mound to celebrate her team and her joy in its accomplishments, and she has
the baseball to prove it.
"Love" is a word with many variations in meaning. One of them involves
romance. A study reported in USA Today for January 17, 2010, declares that
researchers have discovered that blind men prefer thin-waisted women. These
researchers admit that sighted men also like thin-waisted women, but blind
men don't think they have to be as thin-waisted as sighted men do. The
research began with the proposition that a preference for thin-waisted
women is generated from the experience of sighted men looking at women.
Because blind men could not appreciate this visual examination, it was
supposed that they did not share this preference. The research shows that
blind men like women who have waists that are thin, but not quite as thin
as those preferred by sighted men.
Now I ask you, is this preference based upon the method of evaluation?
The sighted men had to look, but the blind men got to touch. In pondering
the enormously significant findings of this study, I find myself reflecting
that those who believe that the best way to appreciate characteristics of
women is by long-range visual examination lack a certain measure of
experience. More ways of knowing exist than the visual. The value gained in
other ways may be no less important than learning by sight.
Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, who founded the National Federation of the Blind
in 1940, was a lawyer and a constitutional scholar as well as a college
professor and a social activist leader. His writings helped to change the
interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and his book
Prejudice, War and the Constitution, won the Woodrow Wilson Award in 1955
for the best book on government and democracy published in that year. Dr.
tenBroek, who was totally blind, began his studies at the University of
California in 1930. During the years that followed he earned five college
degrees and was granted other honorary diplomas.
Henry Wedler (often known as Hoby) is currently a PhD candidate at the
University of California, Davis, in organic chemistry. He, a blind man and
a leader in the National Federation of the Blind, was recently honored for
his leadership at a ceremony in the White House. He was named a Champion of
Change "for leading education and employment efforts in science,
technology, engineering, and math for Americans with disabilities."
The scholarship of blind people is, of course, not limited to these
two examples, but they span a period of more than three-quarters of a
century, and they are indicative of the intellectual capacity possessed by
the blind. However, 45 percent of blind high school students graduate-55
percent do not. Why is the number so small? Only 10 percent of blind
students in grade school and high school are reading Braille-90 percent are
not. Why is the number so small? Are blind students in high school
encouraged to excel? Does the Department of Education encourage school
systems to teach Braille? When administrators in the school systems refuse
to teach Braille, is this done because they don't trust the reading medium,
they don't trust teachers of the blind, they don't trust blind students, or
they have hidden motives that create a disparate discriminatory impact upon
the blind?
Henry Miller (Hank) is a blind student in Oceanport, New Jersey. His
mother, Holly Miller, has become a member of the National Federation of the
Blind, and she has learned that the potential for her son is greater than
she had previously believed. Although Henry Miller has a small amount of
residual vision and although he can use this vision for a brief period to
read print, his ability to read in this way is severely limited. His mother
asked that he be taught Braille.
Amendments, which became law in 1997, to the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act declare that a blind student has a right to
learn Braille. The implementing regulations for this statute contain the
same declaration. However, the teachers and the administrators often want
to avoid this requirement, and they have been given a measure of comfort by
the Department of Education.
The education plan for each student is expected to be developed
exclusively for that student. This requirement of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act has meant that the team of experts in the school
district assesses the needs of the student and determines what the student
will get. The decision made for students who want Braille is often that
they do not get it because the assessment of the team is that the student
doesn't need it. Although the team is supposed to make its assessment for
the best interests of the student, it frequently makes its decision for the
perceived best interest of the school system, which does not want to go to
the trouble to teach Braille.
Henry Miller's mom came to me some time ago to ask that the National
Federation of the Blind help in the effort to get Braille instruction for
her son. She had originally asked for Braille instruction when her boy was
in the second grade, at the time when learning to read is among the most
important lessons that can be had in school. When Holly Miller asked for
this help, it was clear that her frustration level was intense, and I
wondered why. Because the Millers were living in New Jersey, this request
seemed to me to be one that would require fairly nominal effort. I had been
told that the education for blind students in New Jersey was excellent, and
I was aware that the New Jersey Commission for the Blind and Visually
Impaired could be called upon to provide assistance in evaluating the needs
of blind students. The director of this commission for the blind is himself
a blind person, and he had previously declared himself to be a member of
the National Federation of the Blind. Undoubtedly, I thought, there has
been some administrative snarl that must be addressed to get education in
Braille for this blind boy.
But the Commission for the Blind had decided to join with the school
district to refuse to teach Braille to a blind student. The decision was
made in characteristically bureaucratic language. An evaluator of Henry
Miller, not from the school district but from the Commission for the Blind,
said, "Braille and print are equally valuable as media for reading and
writing. However, a best-practice approach encourages reading and writing
methods that are least restrictive for the student." The consequence of
this so-called evaluation is: no Braille-because Braille is too
restrictive. Henry Miller must hold a print book within two inches of his
eyes to read it; he cannot read for more than five minutes; he can read
print only if it is large and distinct; and his reading demands enormous
amounts of energy so that requiring him to do it in print causes extreme
weariness. Yet the Commission for the Blind in New Jersey said that he may
not have Braille because it is too restrictive. The evaluator said he must
read print. The evaluator from the Commission for the Blind demanded of him
that he do the impossible. What kind of a person would make such a demand?
The decision of the Commission for the Blind was made to protect the
right of the student to the statutorily-guaranteed free and appropriate
public education. In order to provide Henry Miller an appropriate public
education, they said that he, a blind student, may not have Braille.
Consequently the arguments continued. We hired a lawyer for Holly Miller, a
bright, aggressive woman in Dan Goldstein's firm named Sharon Krevor-
Weisbaum. We demanded Braille. After three years of argument, negotiation,
demands, refusals, and bureaucratic red tape, the trial before the
administrative law judge finally occurred. The proceedings lasted nine
days, and the decision of the judge is more than sixty pages long. The
decision of the judge says that Henry Miller gets Braille-not just a little
bit but enough to try to reverse the disadvantages of being denied this
training for more than three years.
Will Henry Miller be able to earn a college diploma, and will he
receive an advanced degree? Will the Commission for the Blind tell him that
education at the university level is for somebody else but not for him?
Will he have the tools to expand the reach of his mind to the fullest
extent of his capacity? The answers to these questions are clear. He will
get his education because we have decided that he will, and nobody can keep
us from helping him to get it. No doubt, the Commission for the Blind in
New Jersey does not admire Henry Miller and his mother, but we do, and we
are prepared to stand with them.
Law implies force; love signifies giving. How do these intersect? A
law not inspired by love is a hollow thing, and what we are seeking is
substance, not a hollow shell. What we want is to become a valued part of
our society, recognized for the worth that we possess. In order to achieve
this objective, we must have faith in ourselves, but we must also carry
within us the faith that others also can have faith in us. This requires a
substantial measure of trust.
The nature of trust and the nature of love are similar in that they
cannot be had unless they are shared. A human being cannot be trusted
unless that human being is willing to trust others, which demands
acceptance of vulnerability. If a person or an organization is incapable of
being hurt by trusting too much, that person and that organization will be
tempted to trust too little and will never know the joy and peace that come
from love. Consequently, we must be prepared to risk our judgments, our
feelings, our hope for the future. When we do, opportunity opens before us,
and we come to know the freedom that can and will be ours. We must build
and enforce the law that we need, but we must do it not just with faith in
ourselves but also with faith that others will join us.
Our history is filled with incidents that belittle our talent,
circumscribe our opportunity, or denigrate our judgment. Some say we can't
understand documents, some tell us that our behavior in social situations
is humbling and bumbling, some argue that employment is beyond our physical
and intellectual capacity, some assert that we are not good enough to
receive the same wages that other people get, and some urge us to believe
that our appreciation of physical beauty is altered because of our lack of
sight. Some people even tell us that our methods of learning are too
restrictive and therefore inferior.
Although our past is filled with the pain of restriction and denial,
our future will be constructed according to an expanded and inclusive
standard that we will determine. It can and it will offer equal access to
information presented in forms that we can comprehend. It can and it will
incorporate employment opportunities commensurate with our innate abilities
and training. It can and it will make education available that will take
advantage of the fullest range of our talent. Our future can do these
things and it will do these things because we have the energy, the
commitment, the determination, and the love essential to make it happen.
Others have made decisions for us in the past, but increasingly we are
making them for ourselves. We must believe in ourselves, but we must also
believe in others who will come to believe in us. We have the faith to do
this, and we have those characteristics that can engender admiration in
others. We must behave in such a way that we are worthy of admiration, but
we can, and we will.
I have met the members of the National Federation of the Blind, and I
have observed what we are. The traits that characterize our movement are
boldness, curiosity, an indomitable spirit, and an unfailing capacity for
generosity. Our judgment is not always correct, but most of the time it is.
Our trust is not always returned, but in the long run and in the ways that
matter, it is. The demands upon us in intellectual capacity, imaginative
spirit, and faith in ourselves and others are enormous. But we will meet
them. Because of our determination nothing on earth can keep us from
gaining the objectives we have set. Sometimes we stand on the pitcher's
mound, and sometimes we get our Braille. Everything else that we need is
within the capacity that makes us what we are. The future is bright with
promise; join with your fellow Federationists, and we will bring the future
to be our own!
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Dr. Fredric Schroeder]
An End to Legalized Discrimination: A Demand for Justice and a Call for
Action
by Fredric K. Schroeder
From the Editor: On Thursday morning, July 5, NFB First Vice
President Dr. Fred Schroeder came to the podium to deliver a stirring
justification for repealing Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
This is what he said:
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act allows employers to pay
blind workers and others with disabilities less than the federal minimum
wage based on their productivity. Productivity is determined by comparing
the performance of people with disabilities to that of people who do not
have disabilities. For example, if people who do not have disabilities can
fold a hundred packing boxes an hour and the individual with a disability
can fold only fifty, then he or she is paid half of the customary hourly
wage for that job.
We are asked to believe that Section 14(c) helps people with the most
significant disabilities by giving them some access to work--people
incapable of working in the competitive labor force--even if it is at a
subminimum wage. Of course we know that there are people with very
significant disabilities, but we also know that the impact of a disability
cannot be objectively measured. The impact of a disability falls along a
continuum from least significant to most significant, but where is the line
dividing those individuals who are able to engage in competitive work from
those who are not?
A friend of mine and a good Federationist, Christopher Fountain,
passed away last summer. Ten years earlier Christopher contracted
meningitis. As a result he became blind, lost most of his hearing, lost the
use of his legs, and was left with only limited use of his hands. Given
Christopher's multiple disabilities and associated health problems, he was
advised to go to work folding pizza boxes, even though he was in college at
the time he contracted meningitis. Think about that. What sense does that
make?
The meningitis made it hard for Christopher to use his hands. No
matter how hard he worked, no matter how determined he may have been, if
Christopher had gone to work folding pizza boxes, his poor hand dexterity
would have limited his productivity. How much? No one knows, but it is
almost a certainty that Christopher would have been paid something less
than the minimum wage.
But Christopher did not want to fold pizza boxes. He wanted to be a
licensed counselor. He went back to school and completed his associate's
degree with a 3.6 grade point average. He then transferred to Old Dominion
University to work toward a bachelor's degree. At Old Dominion he earned
straight A's in all of his major subject area courses and maintained an
overall 3.65 grade point average.
Today most blind people earn at least the minimum wage, but make no
mistake about it, under federal law no blind person or any person with a
disability is guaranteed the minimum wage. On October 4, 2011, at the
request of the National Federation of the Blind, Congressmen Cliff Stearns
(R-FL) and Tim Bishop (D-NY) introduced H.R. 3086, the Fair Wages for
Workers with Disabilities Act, which would phase out Section 14(c) of the
Fair Labor Standards Act, thereby ending the shameful practice of paying
workers with disabilities below the federal minimum wage. But not everyone
supports eliminating subminimum wages.
In its November 2011 newsletter the Missouri Association for Persons
with Intellectual Disabilities posed the question: "Where will Sammy,
Patti, and Becky go when you eliminate their jobs?" The question itself
presumes that, if required to pay the minimum wage, sheltered workshops and
other employers would have no option but to lay off Sammy, Patti, and Becky
and other workers with significant disabilities. I do not know Sammy,
Patti, or Becky. It is possible that they have such significant
disabilities that they simply cannot work at a competitive level at any
job, but I doubt it. I doubt it because I knew Christopher and many others
like him who had no business working at a subminimum wage.
Of course it is not just the Missouri Association for Persons with
Intellectual Disabilities that defends paying people with disabilities
below the minimum wage. Just last month, in June 2012, Goodwill issued a
statement saying: "Across the U.S., 79 percent of people with disabilities
are not working today. The Special Minimum Wage Certificate [I feel
compelled to interject here. What a euphemism! The special minimum wage
certificate? It's a certificate that allows you to pay a subminimum wage,
but I suppose it sounds better the way they say it. Let me get back to the
text.] The Special Minimum Wage Certificate is an important resource to
employ individuals with significant disabilities. The Certificate enables
Goodwill and thousands of other employers to provide opportunities for
people with severe disabilities who otherwise might not be part of the
workforce." But is that really true? Assuming that people with disabilities
are inherently less productive (an assumption I reject), does that mean
that the cost of low productivity must be borne by the individual, or are
there subsidies to offset the cost?
Of course a private employer must make a profit, or there is no
reason to stay in business, but that is not the case for a nonprofit
agency. Let's assume that a private company has a $1 million janitorial
contract. The company prices the contract with the intention of making a
profit. Let's assume that the profit margin is modest-say 10 percent or
$100,000. Now let's assume that that same contract is taken over by a
sheltered workshop. The sheltered workshop is a nonprofit agency; but that
does not mean that the sheltered workshop drops the $100,000 profit from
the price of the contract. It still charges the $1 million, not $900,000.
That means that a $100,000 subsidy to the sheltered workshop automatically
helps to offset any additional costs associated with a less productive
workforce. But there is more. The private company must pay taxes while the
sheltered workshop is tax exempt. But wait, there is still more. The
sheltered workshop also receives charitable contributions from the public
to subsidize the cost of hiring a presumably less productive workforce of
people with disabilities. And there is still more. The sheltered workshop
receives money from a variety of government agencies to provide training
and day-activity and other services; and, if all of that were not enough,
bear in mind that sheltered workshops regularly receive municipal, state,
and federal contracts on a noncompetitive basis, often at a price higher
than the price charged by the private sector. But with all of these
subsidies-subsidies rooted in the belief that people with disabilities are
less productive and require greater care and supervision-the sheltered
workshops say they cannot find the money to pay the minimum wage, much less
a decent wage. Set aside for a moment the seemingly endless parade of
sheltered workshops that have been found paying their executives excessive
salaries, how much money do workers with disabilities in sheltered
workshops actually earn?
In the 1980s sheltered workshop employees earned an average of $1.17
per hour (Lam, 1986). Today, they average $1.36 an hour (NASDDS & HSRI,
2009), an increase of 19 cents an hour over three decades. With an average
hourly wage of $1.36, how much money do sheltered workshop workers actually
take home? Assuming a forty-hour work week, $1.36 an hour comes to $54.40 a
week. But sheltered workshop workers do not work forty hours a week. A
recent annual report from the National Core Indicators (NCI) Program, a
joint venture between the National Association of State Directors of
Developmental Disabilities Services and the Human Services Research
Institute (2007-2008), found that people in sheltered workshops worked an
average of 18.5 hours per week. At $1.36 an hour, that equals just $25.16 a
week, hardly a princely sum, certainly not enough to live on let alone
being enough to support a family--and hard to swallow when there are
sheltered workshop executives making hundreds of thousands of dollars a
year.
Defenders of maintaining special wage certificates argue that it is
only those individuals with the most significant disabilities who are paid
a subminimum wage and only after a fair and objective evaluation of their
productivity. They argue that for those individuals, people like Sammy,
Patti, and Becky, the subminimum wage system gives them the opportunity to
earn a little money--not much but a little. But why must Sammy, Patti, and
Becky prove their worth while others are guaranteed the minimum wage? [I am
tempted to interject, my good friend Allen Harris would say: without
putting too fine a point on it,] if we were to pay members of Congress
based on their recent productivity, I suspect that a number-perhaps a large
number-might find their paychecks startlingly small.
We are still left with a serious and difficult question. We do not
want to take away anyone's opportunity to work, especially that of people
who have the most complex disabilities. But we are asked to take on faith
that the sheltered workshops are somehow able to know which individuals are
able to work competitively and which are not. We are asked to take on faith
that the productivity of people with disabilities has been fairly measured.
And we are asked to take on faith that the sheltered workshops would go out
of business if they had to pay their workers the minimum wage. But how do
we know that the people working in sheltered workshops have such limited
ability that they could not work anywhere else? How do we know that their
productivity has been fairly measured? And how do we know that the
sheltered workshops would go out of business if they had to pay their
workers the minimum wage? The answer is that we don't. We are asked to take
it on faith. We must end the practice of paying blind people and others
with disabilities below the minimum wage. It is nothing less than legalized
discrimination.
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act is rooted in the
presumption that blind people and others with disabilities must prove their
worth while others are assured the minimum wage. That is discrimination. It
is based on the unquestioned assumption that blind people and others with
disabilities are automatically, inevitably less productive. That is
discrimination. It is rooted in the assumption that blind people and others
with disabilities require the care and protection of a facility. That is
discrimination. It is based on the assumption that blind people and others
with disabilities can perform only low-skilled, low-wage work. That is
discrimination. It assumes that blind people and others with disabilities
have no hope of lifting themselves out of poverty and earning a decent
wage. That is discrimination. And it assumes that the sheltered workshops
would never take unfair advantage of their workers, and that is naïve, and
it too is discrimination.
I ran a sheltered workshop in the mid-1980s. The day I became
director, we eliminated the practice of paying subminimum wages. No one was
laid off, no one was forced out, and the workshop did not go broke. It is
time to stop pretending that sheltered workshops are benevolent charities
that would pay the minimum wage if only they could. If they cannot pay the
minimum wage given the numerous subsidies they receive but can find money
to compensate senior executives with exorbitant salaries, in some cases
paying their chief executives in excess of half a million dollars a year,
that is abuse; it is abuse of the law, abuse of workers with disabilities,
and abuse of the trust and generosity of the community.
There is no question that Christopher had serious multiple
disabilities. If he had gone to work folding pizza boxes, even if he had
managed to work at a competitive rate, at best he would have earned the
minimum wage. You can call it ignorance. You can call it low expectations.
You can call it paternalism. But it is legalized discrimination, and it
must end. We must pass the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act,
and we must pass it now, and we will pass it because we are the National
Federation of the Blind.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Anil Lewis]
The Client/Career Paradigm: An Entrepreneurial Perspective
by Anil Lewis
From the Editor: On Thursday morning, July 5, Anil Lewis, director
of strategic communications of the National Federation of the Blind, made
the following presentation:
I want to go back to 1989. That's when I lost my sight, due to
retinitis pigmentosa. It could have been one of those moments that changed
my life in a way that reduced me to less than a man, but I want to talk to
you a little about this transition and what I did that I am apologizing
for.
When I lost my sight in 1989, I went to a community rehabilitation
facility in Atlanta. I had the privilege of talking to the blindness
professionals who met last Saturday, so, if you want to know the ins and
outs of that experience, talk to them. But it was a lightning-fast three-
month program of blindness rehabilitation training in which I got to a
rapid speed of thirty-three words per minute in Braille, became a
proficient route traveler, and learned to cook my Marie Calendar chicken
pot pie in a microwave oven. The frustration was that with this degree of
proficiency I was labeled superior. I was super blind. Everyone was
praising how wonderful I was, to the point where they actually gave me a
job teaching Braille and computer skills. I wasn't the best, and the people
I taught didn't get the best, but I did try my best with what I had.
In that program I ended up becoming the job placement person. We had
an extended employment program in the back. For those of you who don't
recognize this term, it's a sheltered workshop. We had people doing mail
order and piece-rate assembly, and we were paying them per hour. We were
judging their productivity based on their ability to get letters inside an
envelope or to wrap metal mesh and secure it with a rubber band. I'm sorry,
but I didn't know any better. That's the only excuse I have to offer. But
in that capacity I helped a young man named Vincent. He was a young guy
whom the school system failed. Great attitude, really street savvy, but he
wanted to change his life, so I worked with him. He became our client; this
is unfortunately how I saw him. I decided maybe I could get him a job
working in a recycling plant. I went through the phone book and called all
these recycling agencies. I found one that was interested. I went in and
talked with them. They were interested in hiring. I took Vincent there. He
worked that one day. Then he came back to me and said, "I don't like that
job. I want another job." I was mad at him. I was really upset with
Vincent, but I really should have been upset with me because I tried
putting Vincent in a position when he had no blindness skills and no work
skills at all. So I apologize to Vincent.
Eventually I was exposed to the philosophy of the Federation. You
guys have heard the story: Jim Gashel taught me a lot about Social Security
work incentives, etc. I learned about the Business Enterprise Program,
Randolph-Sheppard. With that I changed my whole paradigm. I went from
looking at my clients as clients to looking at them as students who wanted
careers. In doing that, I met a gentleman named Harold who worked in our
extended employment program. He expressed interest in working in the
Business Enterprise Program, so I worked him through the program. When he
got his first stand, we were all excited. I taught him mobility back and
forth to work, doing route travel, trailing the sides of the MARTA Station,
positioning him, angling him, not really giving him any blindness skills
because I had no blindness skills. But he was successful in the BEP
program. He now had a career. He wasn't a client, and I wasn't trying to
secure him a job in a recycling plant.
As I learned more about the NFB's philosophy, my placement rates
increased exponentially because I underwent a paradigm shift. I began to
look at these people as equals. I was no longer superior. I looked at them
as individuals with potential, not as clients. Because of that I was able
to help them enter careers. I am thankful to the Federation for that
growth, but I still needed a lot of progress in doing job placement,
acknowledging that people need a career. I was helpful in getting blind
people jobs at the Wachovia call center. We ended up with maybe twenty-two
or twenty-three blind people there. It's interesting because such an effort
sinks or swims on the experience of the first person hired. Luckily Vivian
set a good example, so Wachovia then said give us some more of those blind
people. I gave them more blind people. It was really beautiful because many
of them started at the call center, but they ended up working in different
departments in the bank. They worked in the fraud section; they worked in
the sales section. That was a win-win. But again they were limited because
I didn't allow them to learn the blindness skills that would have enabled
them to do customer service with the best of them. The blind workers had
better productivity rates than some of the sighted people in their jobs,
but they had no blindness skills.
Eventually I got tired of working at that rehabilitation facility. I
wanted something bigger, wanted the opportunity to have a greater impact.
Randstad Staffing Services offered me a job as the manager of the
disability employment initiative during the Olympic Games. I thought, this
is going to be awesome. I have the keys to the candy store. These are all
the jobs. We have an Olympic contract. I'm going to put some people to
work, and I did. We probably placed 500 people with disabilities through
that initiative. Here again, they had no real skills, but they had jobs.
Unfortunately, those jobs lasted only as long as the Olympics. I apologize.
I went to work for the Client Assistance Program after Randstad
Staffing Services, and I said, "Well, now I really have to work on making
sure people get skills. The way to do that is to work with the VR agencies.
I will make sure that VR clients get services to get the skills they need."
I thought it was going to be easy. It was not. Georgia is kind of
entrenched in a custodialistic value system, which made it very difficult
to move the agenda forward to empower people with disabilities to get the
skills they needed.
The big paradigm shift for me, the opportunity that really let me
capitalize on my skills and my passion to work with people came about when
I became the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Georgia.
I gained access to similarly committed colleagues, a resource network in
the national office, and a mentoring relationship with Dr. Marc Maurer. I
was infused with the ability and the desire to be an entrepreneur. I don't
mean an entrepreneur going out to make money by starting my own business.
Entrepreneurs are passionate about what they do. They put in at least an 80-
hour work week. They don't get very much sleep, but it doesn't bother them
because they are passionate about what they do. I lived, slept, ate, and
drank Federationism and loved every minute of it. Some members of our
national office staff have that same committed passion. There are members
of this audience: affiliate presidents, chapter presidents, division
presidents, and board members--you guys stand up. All the leaders,
presidents, division presidents, and board members, that's a significant
number in the room. I just want to say thank you for your commitment and
passion. Thank you for working with me toward fulfilling the mission of the
National Federation of the Blind. Please be seated, but recognize that you
leave this convention with a challenge of being an entrepreneur.
As the National Federation of the Blind of Georgia president, I was
able to put together a lot of revenue-generating programs--a mentoring
program through a contract with the Department of Vocational
Rehabilitation, and our NFB-NEWSLINE® service was funded through our
relationship with the Public Service Commission. That allowed us to open up
offices in Georgia, and maybe that's the paradigm shift that we as an
organization need to make, because in some instances we are victims of our
success. Leaders in this organization are truly passionate and committed,
but others could be extremely good organization leaders, but, because we
were so successful creating even greater employment opportunities, we ended
up with people who don't have the time to dedicate to the organization.
But, if we were able to make it more revenue generating, maybe we could
bring some people with specific expertise back to the table. So I need you
to work on being entrepreneurs.
I have benefitted from this organization in real ways. I love each of
you. I do consider this my Federation family. I have been the beneficiary
of lots of praise from many of you, and I have been the recipient of
constructive criticism, and I thank you for that. I have been the recipient
of some not-so-helpful criticism, but I thank you for that too, because it
all goes to make me a better person. I think that I benefit by giving it
right back to you. It's that mutual benefit, that mutual support, that love
in this organization that makes us grow. [Applause]
So I want to take a quick minute to thank Jim Omvig for having
confidence in me and working with me and talking with me. I want to thank
Kareem Dale for acknowledging the fact that I had some potential. I
definitely want to thank Dr. Marc Maurer for working with me, for making me
the person I am today. As an aside, I participated in the mentoring program
with the BISM youth program. During one of the training sessions Amy Phelps
asked, "Who in your life has been your mentor?" I got to thinking back.
Those who know me know that I had a really interesting life growing up. I
said to myself, okay, who were my mentors? I could remember teachers who
worked to help me. I could think of family members who really worked, but
nobody after that really had an impact. I rapidly surveyed my life, and I
realized that my most influential mentor has been Dr. Marc Maurer. People
are no doubt thinking that I am just trying to ingratiate myself with my
boss but I'm not. Several times in my life I could have just given up. When
I was dealing with the custody battle for my son, when I was dealing with
my blindness and the death of my mother, I was grateful that I had Dr.
Maurer to reach out to. Thank you, Dr. Maurer, for being that mentor, that
rock, that support for me. These are the people whom I am thanking
specifically.
On July 12, because of my ability to recognize that disabled people
have more desire to have careers than to be clients, because of the work
you have done to help me become more of an entrepreneur, I'll be sworn in
as a member of the AbilityOne Commission, the Committee for Purchase From
People Who Are Blind and Severely Disabled. [Applause] I'll be working with
members of the committee to make sure that the JWOD Program really
flourishes and grows into something that is beneficial, that creates
careers for people.
I'm going to be candid with you. I do understand, and I'm not fooling
myself into thinking that it's going to be an easy duty. Some people don't
want me there because I am a Federationist. As a matter of fact, I have
been told that I can't go to meetings espousing the positions of the
Federation. It could potentially be criminal. The beauty is that they are
my positions as well. They cannot tell me I can't go to a meeting and
express the positions that I hold. They will benefit from my input whether
they like it or not. [Applause] So, I'm going to take my entrepreneurial
spirit to the AbilityOne Commission, and we're going to create real
opportunities that never existed before. We're going to turn this program
into something even better than the participants recognize that it can be.
I talked to you a little about the clients I helped, and here at the
open forum I am apologizing. I don't really feel bad about what I did
because, as I explained in the rehab professionals meeting, I offered them
a degree of independence that they otherwise would not have received. The
people who worked at Wachovia, the gentleman who ended up working as a
Randolph-Sheppard vendor, and all the hundreds of other people I worked
with, I provided them a degree of independence that they would otherwise
not have had. They were able to earn a good income. But the reality is that
I am apologetic because I have been a beneficiary of training at the
Louisiana Center in 2009. As a result I recognize that skills are very
important. So, although I assisted my clients to gain greater independence,
I denied them their freedom. That is what I apologize for. We in the
Federation know that, given the proper training and opportunity, blind
people can aspire to anything they can dream. [Applause]
With this, I make the commitment to you today that there will be no
more Vincents in my life. There will be no more Harolds in my life. The
people whose lives I touch will receive my focus on the fact that they need
to be whole people receiving the skills they need, the support they need to
reach their potential.
Finally, I put this challenge out there. In acknowledgement of my
failure to those people in my past, I'm giving employers out there
currently employing people with disabilities at subminimum wages and in
sheltered workshops a pass because maybe they haven't heard the word from
the Federation. Maybe they don't know that people with disabilities have
capacity, but we are going to shout that truth and make it ring throughout
this country so no one can deny it. Once you have heard the word, we'll
hold you accountable and will put your feet to the fire. And, if you will
not turn your way of operating around, supporting the capacity of your
workers, then we will see that you burn in hell. [Applause] Thank you.
Thank you for your time and attention. [Applause]
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]
The Degrees of Freedom, the Organized Blind Movement: The Dynamics
of Independence and Success
by Mark A. Riccobono
From the Editor: Tuesday afternoon, July 3, Mark Riccobono, executive
director of the NFB Jernigan Institute, addressed the convention. This is
what he said:
In the study of science the concept of degrees of freedom is used to
describe the set of variables needed to determine a current or future
outcome. In statistics these are any of the unrestricted, independent
random variables that constitute a statistic. In physics they are any of
the minimum number of coordinates required to specify completely the motion
and position of a mechanical system. In chemistry they are any of the
independent thermodynamic variables required to describe a system with a
given number of phases and components. A system is not adequately described
unless all of its degrees of freedom are considered. And it is equally true
that a system need not be limited by its current degrees of freedom.
Degrees of freedom might also be used to describe the dynamics of a
group, a society, a government, or any other system that has a number of
human influences upon its outcomes. We might think of each individual as an
independent degree of freedom. The combination of two, five, ten, or one
hundred individuals working collectively may provide more degrees of
freedom than those individuals acting without coordination. In human
systems the degrees of freedom may be changed but, unlike mechanical
systems, they are influenced by perceived as well as real limits. If the
barriers can be removed or the perceptions adjusted, the degrees of freedom
will increase, the outcomes will change, and the future potential of the
system will expand.
Prior to the establishment of the National Federation of the Blind,
the blind had little influence on their future outcomes. During our
organizing Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, the founder and first president of the
National Federation of the Blind, described the new organization as
"creating the machinery which will unify the action and concentrate the
energies of the blind." In forming our organization, we established a
system with power, energy, determination, and resources-a system that could
influence other systems and thus establish new degrees of freedom for the
blind.
Each time a blind person has gained employment in a new field of
study, accessed a new resource or public accommodation, or achieved
influence through another position of power, the degrees of freedom for all
of us were increased. Similarly, every time a new chapter of the Federation
was formed, a new affiliate established, or another convention assembled,
the variables changed, new potential was realized, and the ability to
influence the broader society was enhanced. Out of the collective system of
the Federation have come individual blind people with growing self-
confidence and an empowered spirit to change the systems that had been
established for us without us.
In our effort to increase our degrees of freedom, we undertook plans
to build the first research and training institute developed and directed
by the blind. The addition of the NFB Jernigan Institute as a variable in
our movement has increased our capacity to pursue our hopes and dreams.
While we have more degrees of freedom both individually and collectively
than ever before, many systems outside our organization have the potential
to place limits on our future. We must continue to prevent new limits from
emerging while seeking to further expand our horizons.
Through our Institute we have sought to create new opportunities for
the blind in science, technology, engineering, and math. We have built a
knowledge base of experience and educational resources. We have observed
blind youth building payloads and launching rockets, performing chemistry,
undertaking engineering projects, investigating biology through dissection,
touching unseen objects at the nanoscale, programming applications for work
and play, driving experimental vehicles for the blind, and dozens of other
previously unexplored educational activities. The first groups of blind
students from our programs are now finishing college and emerging as
leaders in a variety of fields, and the degrees of freedom have increased
exponentially.
This summer we will pioneer our next generation of science education
programs-Project Innovation. This program combines our experience during
the past decade with the principles of structured discovery and inquiry-
based learning. NFB Project Innovation will focus on fostering a sense of
innovation and autonomy in young students by allowing them to determine
their own course of study. Imagine the change when we empower blind
elementary students to direct their own inquiry-based curriculum with
support from blind mentors and accessible instructional materials. Imagine
the growth when blind high school students take on their own investigations
while mentoring the younger students. And imagine the new freedoms that
will emerge as these aspiring young people inspire our best educators by
exploring scientific questions for which we have not yet catalogued methods
for nonvisual investigation.
The impact of a change in our degrees of freedom cannot be fully
understood until it can be experienced and directed. Since the opening of
our Institute we have discussed the belief that among the blind today one
individual will be the first blind astronaut. As a result of our exploring
the possibilities with leaders within the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), I was invited by Leland Melvin, NASA's associate
administrator for education, to fly with him and other educators on the
zero-G airplane.
The zero-G plane is a modified Boeing 727 that simulates
weightlessness by flying a series of parabolas and placing the aircraft in
free fall for approximately twenty seconds at a time. Initially the
aircraft climbs at a forty-five-degree angle. The sensation of
weightlessness is achieved by reducing thrust and lowering the nose in
order to maintain zero-lift. Weightlessness begins while ascending and
lasts all the way up and over the top, until the craft reaches a declined
angle of thirty degrees. At that point the plane is pointed downward at
high speed, and must begin to pull back into the nose-up attitude to repeat
the maneuver. On the way down, at the bottom, and up again, the forces felt
are roughly two Gs.
During the pre-flight briefing the instructor discussed the problems
associated with weightlessness, including disorientation. In the zero-G
airplane, orientation is important because you experience only brief
periods of weightlessness-you want your feet pointed toward the floor of
the plane as you come out of the fall. Would it be easier or harder for me?
How would I stay oriented, and how would I find the floor fast enough to
land the right way? Without the experience of the National Federation of
the Blind I might have assumed it would be more difficult for me than for
my sighted colleagues. However, my experience is that with training,
problem solving, and confidence, the blind can compete in areas that we had
previously not imagined. My Federation experience gave me comfort, but I
was still nervous. It occurred to me that, if I landed on my head, they
might never let a blind person on this plane again. And I shared the
concern of every person on the flight-would I be able to do this without
revisiting breakfast.
White cane in hand, I boarded the plane with my new zero-G buddy,
Leland, who has flown on two NASA missions to space, logging many weeks of
weightlessness. We entered from the rear of the plane, where it is much
like any other 727 but with only thirty-five standard seats. The rest of
the cabin was open with the exception of a series of six stations in the
center of the floor, where the educators would perform their experiments
inside glove boxes. The floor and walls were padded, and an elastic cord
ran the length of the plane at about shoulder level on both sides. I
collapsed my cane and slipped it into the sleeve of my flight suit. With
all the concentration on the pre-flight briefing, it had not occurred to me
how loud it would be inside the plane. I had planned to use an audible
indicator to stay oriented, but, once we were in the air, it was clear that
would not work. The cord would be my orientation point as I learned to
manage this new degree of freedom.
As we prepared to go into the first free fall, I was seated on the
floor with my back against the wall. My body felt very heavy under the
nearly two G-forces. Suddenly the engine noise was reduced and I felt the
downward pressure lift. Without effort I was now coming off the floor and
feeling for the cord. I managed to stay along the wall and keep my feet in
the right direction while trying to get used to the new freedom of
movement. "Feet down" was called out to warn all passengers. As we
continued to go in and out of weightlessness, I built a knowledge base of
experience and expanded my movements. I found my natural reaction was to
kick my feet in mid-air. It only took one contact between the top of my
head and the ceiling, an unusual experience for a guy who is only five-
seven, to change my behavior. I found a good comfort zone of movement and
learned the patterns so I could anticipate when to make the right moves.
When you are expanding the horizons, it takes your own initiative and
the push of those around you. Leland then said, "On this next one, curl up
into a ball. We are going to pick you up and spin you around!" I thought to
myself, "Sounds like a great idea, but I wonder how I will tell which way
is up when it is time for my feet to be down." Suddenly I was doing a
summersault in mid-air with the support of my new friends at NASA, and with
their help I was able to get my feet pointed towards the floor in the nick
of time.
One flight does not make a blind astronaut, but it strengthened my
conviction that we can create the body of knowledge and experience required
to make it a reality. Where is that blind person today? Is she in this
audience? Is he studying at a university? Are they wondering about the
potential for their future and asking the questions we all considered
before we met the National Federation of the Blind? I look forward to the
day when the first blind astronaut sends us a transmission from beyond our
atmosphere, because I know it will reveal horizons we cannot anticipate
until we get the experience and learn how to direct it.
We have also committed ourselves to creating new knowledge by
accepting the risks and responsibilities that come with scientific
exploration. We were challenged by President Maurer to explore the
potential for a blind person to use technology to maneuver a car
independently. In the process we have freed our own minds of the historical
limitations we had accepted, and we have adopted a more active role in
determining our future. In the broader society there is significant debate
about the timeline for cars that are piloted completely without human
intervention. Some think we can make this a reality by 2022 while others
believe it will take ten or more years beyond that point. Most believe that
the technology is not the biggest barrier, but rather the legal,
regulatory, and cultural shift that will be required. Many believe that the
computers need to be completely capable of independently operating the
vehicle before the blind can drive. We believe that a new degree of freedom
can be established when we participate in building technologies that take
advantage of our capacity to think and react. Our experience has taught us
that our active engagement in the development of innovative technology will
create new knowledge and open up opportunities that society had previously
dismissed.
One of the first public visions for cars that drive themselves was
presented at the 1939 World's Fair. At our organizing the next year, we did
not have enough degrees of freedom to consider how we might participate in
the car of the future. Through our Jernigan Institute we have established
the capacity to engage with an industry that has viewed us as only passive
passengers, and we are driving the stimulation of the brightest minds to
consider how we can become drivers. We recently presented at the Driverless
Car Summit-a gathering of industry leaders in advanced automobile
technology. Our perspective is influencing the conversation about the cars
of the future and how we might be included in the design phase. We will not
be content to sit and wait until the driverless car arrives; opportunity
will come from helping to build our future today.
As we create knowledge, we also collect it. An important variable in
our freedom was our establishment of a research library on blindness-a
venue for collecting, preserving, and analyzing our history and progress.
We continue to build our library collection and new forums for discourse
about the future. We have been building a strong community of experts in
the legal profession through our disability law symposium in order to
expand on the vision of freedom that Dr. tenBroek first articulated. That
the blind might lead the advancement of disability rights was a dream of
Dr. tenBroek that was not easily achieved during his life. Our research
library allows us to reflect on the vision of past leaders, apply that
knowledge in the context of today's variables, and carry forward the
relevant pursuits that we have not yet achieved.
Sometimes we collect knowledge, other times we create it, and often we
disseminate it. The National Federation of the Blind is pursuing nothing
less than complete accessibility to the technologies being used to share
knowledge in public libraries and educational programs. We are opening
dialogue with leaders of the top technology companies, the leading
publishers, and the most prestigious educational institutions in order to
make our vision of equality in education a reality. We are not simply
demanding accessibility-through our Jernigan Institute we are sharing best
practices and assisting major companies in baking accessibility into their
infrastructure. Just one example of this is the historic two-day Inclusive
Publishing Forum we held at the Jernigan Institute last month. Our vision
of freedom includes unprecedented access to knowledge, and we now have the
tools to demand equal access and to assist the companies and organizations
that can deliver that degree of freedom.
By examining the shackles that continue to limit our freedom, we find
some that existed before 1940. It is no surprise that I am thinking about
the persistent unfair, discriminatory, and immoral practice of paying
people with disabilities less than the federally established minimum wage.
Although we do not yet possess the freedom afforded by equal pay for equal
work, that degree of freedom will be ours, and we will no longer allow our
future to be one of exploitation.
As long as we are talking about unfair, discriminatory, and immoral,
let's not ignore the Braille literacy rate in this country. Why is the
literacy rate so low? Is it that we do not possess the capacity to learn?
Is it that Braille is incredibly difficult to master? Is it that the tools
do not exist to teach it effectively? No, no, and no! We have been engaged
in a comprehensive campaign to educate the public about the Braille
literacy crisis in America, and we have a robust array of programs to
change the status quo. From our Braille Pals Club to our Braille Readers
Are Leaders adult program, we are promoting the benefits of Braille across
the lifespan. We have been working with new teachers to ensure that they
are prepared to be experts in Braille, and we are teaching it ourselves.
This summer our Braille enrichment programs will make a difference in
twenty locations in eleven states. Later this year we will launch a new
website called Braille 360 with the goals of establishing a forum for blind
children to share their love for reading and increasing their Braille and
technology skills. This fall we will also convene a Braille symposium to
explore the best practices in Braille instruction and to seek solutions to
the barriers we face. The National Federation of the Blind leads the way in
Braille literacy, but we do not yet possess the degree of freedom we need
in this area.
Despite our leadership too many blind children are struggling to get
access to the freedom that comes from literacy. We are all now familiar
with the recent victory in the three-year battle to get Braille for Hank
Miller, and we are painfully aware that for every Hank there are another
two dozen or more blind children who are still waiting. How many birthdays
need to pass before the gift of literacy can be revealed to these children?
We can no longer wait. Along with all of the programs and policy
improvements we are pursuing, we need to be more insistent in demanding
Braille literacy for blind children. The more hearts and minds we can
engage in the Braille literacy crisis, the more potential we have for
changing the outcomes and securing more freedom.
We possess more degrees of freedom today than we could have imagined
even a decade ago. What are our hopes and dreams for the next five years?
How do we want to explore the opportunities ahead? What will be the result
of removing the limits that have persisted since the beginning of our
organization? Through our Jernigan Institute we have the ability to create,
collect, and disseminate knowledge based on our experience with freedom and
independence. It may take time to learn what to do with the new freedom
that we gain, but we are certain that we will learn to manage it
effectively. The variable that is most dynamic, has the most influence on
the outcomes, and continues to grow is the National Federation of the
Blind. Let us continue to discover new degrees of freedom through our
effort to build a future full of opportunity.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Scott LaBarre]
Minar Directae
by Scott C. LaBarre
From the Editor: Scott LaBarre is the president of the National
Association of Blind Lawyers and is involved in many of the high-profile
cases we undertake. He made this presentation on Tuesday afternoon, July 3.
Here is what he said:
Thank you, Dr. Maurer and my Federation family. Today I have the honor
of standing before you and presenting on Minar Directae, my long-standing
nemesis. What is it; why should we care about it; and, most important, what
in the world can we do about it?
By now you have all probably hopped on one of your i-devices or
similar gadgets and figured out what minar directae is. It is Latin for
"direct threat." I suppose that still may not help you. Direct threat as I
am referring to it today addresses the way our law deals with safety-based
custodialism against people with disabilities. The Supreme Court sanctioned
this legal doctrine in a case called School District of Nassau County,
Florida, versus Arline, decided in 1987. There the Supreme Court stated
that an employer cannot irrationally rely on fears about a person's
disability to terminate him or her or deny equal employment opportunity.
Congress expanded upon this concept while passing the Americans with
Disabilities Act and made it clear that employers and many other entities
may not exclude people with disabilities based on fears or stereotypes that
a person's disability might cause harm. The only time that an employer or
any other institution can exclude a person with a disability because of
disability-based safety concerns is when the person's impairment truly
poses a direct threat. This is defined as a significant risk to health and
safety, and it must be proven by several objective factors. The law also
makes it clear that it is the entity wishing to exclude the individual with
a disability which carries the burden of proving that a direct threat truly
exists. So that's what the doctrine of direct threat is, and it would seem
that, because the employer or other entity wishing to exclude the person
with a disability has to prove that the threat is significant and do so
based on objective criteria, we need not worry about unfounded safety
concerns about our blindness being used against us, right? After all, it is
illegal to do so.
My friends, I submit to you that, instead of a shield used to protect
us against stereotypes and misconceptions about our disability, the
doctrine of direct threat has been wielded against us as a weapon,
preventing us from achieving true equality of opportunity and thus true
first-class citizenship. This is why minar directae matters and why you
should care about it.
First, we should fill out this picture with some background and
historical context. There is no doubt today's law presumes and contemplates
that we will be in the workplace and otherwise out there in society. Prior
to the evolution of our civil rights movement, the prevailing presumption
was that we should be confined to institutions or our homes, where the
state or family would take care of us. In fact, the law of the land did not
recognize that we even had a right to be out in the world.
Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, our founder and first president, considered
these ideas long before anyone else. His 1966 article, "The Right to Live
in the World: The Disabled in the Law of Torts," published in the
California Law Review, clearly sketched the stark and bleak landscape we
faced at that time and advocated a better, more inclusive reality, one that
Dr. tenBroek called "integrationism" or, otherwise put, first class
citizenship. As evidence that the law did not recognize our right to live
in the world, Dr. tenBroek cited a number of cases and laws that codified
the concept that we had no business being out in society. One of the most
poignant cases is that of Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company v.
Williams. In this case, in which a blind man sustained injuries while
traveling alone through a public railroad crossing, the Florida Supreme
Court ruled in 1896 that it was the blind man's fault that he got hurt,
saying: "It is gross negligence in a blind man to expose himself alone in
any situation where he knows that the faculty of sight is absolutely
necessary to the safety of life and limb."
That case represented the law of the land some 116 years ago, a small
blip of time compared with the great weight of time we humans have wandered
this Earth. And in fact that case has never been overturned. If directly
challenged today, I do not believe a court would uphold this ruling chalk
full of misunderstandings about the alleged inherent dangers of being
blind, but one never knows.
With this backdrop less than fifty years ago, it is no wonder that Dr.
tenBroek advocated so forcefully for change, a new day in which we would be
assumed to be part of the mainstream and protected by the law, free of
discrimination. So how far have we really traveled along the path of
integrationism. How far do we have left to go?
Although the law has improved since 1966, interpretation and
application of the law are where we face real threats, threats to our
freedom and acquisition of first-class citizenship. The problem is that
what society and the courts regard as objective evidence of our blindness
being a safety risk often seems ridiculous to us. Frequently people simply
make the assumption that the only way you can be safe in certain activities
of life is by doing them with sight. In effect, being blind makes you per
se and automatically unsafe. I suspect that we have all faced this blanket
assumption at one point or another.
My first significant experience with my old nemesis, minar directae,
came at Valleyfair Amusement Park in Minnesota, and it occurred shortly
after passage of the ADA. Eight other Federationists and I, some of whom
are in this room now, including Curtis Chong, Judy Sanders, and Nadine and
Steve Jacobson, went to the park and attempted to ride a number of
attractions together. The park told us that it was their policy that every
blind person must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Upon further
investigation we discovered that a responsible adult was anyone over four
feet tall who could see. As many of you know, my wife Anahit and I have two
small children. By Valleyfair's definition, both our nine-year-old son
Alexander and seven-year-old daughter Emily are now responsible adults. In
defending the policy, Valleyfair told us that they had hired biodynamic
engineers who stated that it was unsafe for the blind to ride things like
roller coasters unless a sighted person told us what would be happening on
the ride. Otherwise we would lose our postural control and be injured. In a
document filed with the judge in the case that grew out of Valleyfair's
policy, the amusement park's lawyer said, "Many of the rides at Valleyfair,
like all amusement parks, put the rider into very unusual positions. Some
rides spin and spin and spin, some turn the rider completely upside down,
some move with great speed and require the rider to brace him or herself,
and some get the rider completely wet." My response to this startling
revelation is, really? My Federation friends, I don't know about you but
when I go to an amusement park, I fully expect "to spin and spin and spin,"
"turn completely upside down," "move at great speed," and yes, even
sometimes "get completely wet." To this day I remember how astonished I
felt about the depth of Valleyfair's ignorance and how surprised I was when
Valleyfair stubbornly refused to change its policy after meeting with us
and being exposed to our position. Valleyfair assumed that we were so
clueless about our surroundings that we couldn't see that we posed a direct
threat to our own safety. It took a lawsuit and nearly four years, but we
won that case and got Valleyfair's policy thrown out.
That Valleyfair case occurred some twenty-two years ago, while I was
in law school at the University of Minnesota, and at that time, I never
realized how many times I would come across my nemesis, minar directae,
throughout my career. I am not sure exactly, but I have probably handled
over three dozen cases where the principal argument used to exclude my
blind client from the activity in question has been that the blind person
is a safety risk, posing a direct threat to his or her own health and
safety. According to these defendants we cannot do the following activities
because we are an obvious safety risk: be a parent; run a daycare center;
be a social worker; hold a job in a factory or any kind of industrial
setting; work as a residential assistant at a college; be a chiropractor;
be an acupuncturist; teach in a classroom; administer a nursing home; and,
perhaps my all time favorite, go on a honeymoon cruise as a blind couple.
Whatever the exact facts of the case are, the story remains the same--the
employer or whatever entity believes that sight is mandatory for
participating in the activity in question. Because of the power of the
Federation, I am happy to report that we have defeated minar directae in
the vast majority of these cases. Nevertheless, we often learn the most
from the defeats we suffer.
One of the starkest examples of how the direct threat safety argument
continues to be used against us came last year. I, along with my co-counsel
Tim Elder, represented Frank Hohn from Hemingford Village, Nebraska. Frank
is blind because of a severely constricted visual field. For nearly seven
years Frank worked as a railroad machinist for Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Railways (BNSF) and did so without any concern about his job performance.
Even though the evidence in the case established that Frank's coworkers and
supervisors noticed that he saw things differently, no one complained about
his lack of eyesight until he filed a safety complaint about a locomotive
that he believed to be unsafe and that BNSF ordered him to return to
service. Just a few days after that safety hotline complaint was filed,
BNSF removed Frank from his job, using his eye condition as the reason,
stating that they were all of a sudden concerned about his safety. Because
of a number of legal rulings that were, in my opinion, incorrect, the Judge
did not let any evidence about the safety complaint come to trial.
So last July 26, 2011, the twenty-first anniversary of the passage of
the ADA, Frank's trial began in Omaha, Nebraska, and my friends, at least
with respect to application of the law in this case, it was not a good
birthday for the ADA. After a seven-day jury trial the jury delivered its
verdict against our client, Frank Hohn, and thereby upheld BNSF's decision
to remove Frank from his job for safety reasons. What was the evidence
about safety that the jury heard? Was it that Frank had injured himself
while performing his job, failing to see something that would have
prevented the injury? Was it that Frank had injured another worker because
he did not see him or her? Was it that a supervisor or someone else
observed Frank almost get hurt or hurt someone else because he couldn't
see? The answer to these questions is, no, no, and no. The two key areas of
evidence that BNSF relied upon to demonstrate that Frank Hohn was unsafe
were: 1. Frank walked slowly; sometimes shuffled his feet; and, as one
supervisor testified, it looked like Frank's "vision was bothering him." 2.
Three medical doctors testified at trial that someone with Frank's
constricted visual field could not safely work an industrial job because
the environment is far too dynamic. He must work a sedentary position, a
desk job. At trial, I asked BNSF's chief medical officer exactly what kind
of job Frank Hohn could work: "Q. Ma'am, is it your assumption that, if a
person has a reduced visual field like that of Mr. Hohn, they should only
work in static positions, static job positions? A. Well, I don't know what
you mean by static. I think they should be considered for a work
environment in which obstacles are not present." My Federation family, name
me one, just one, job where obstacles aren't present.
Moreover, did these doctors have any experience working with blind
people in the workplace? Did they leave their comfortable offices and
actually observe Frank at work and conduct an actual functional analysis of
whether Frank could do the work that he had been performing for nearly
seven years? Did they consult with any vocational rehabilitation experts
who work with the blind and low vision and actually have expertise about
workplace accommodations and nonvisual techniques that could help? The
answer to these questions is no, no, and no. The jury returned its verdict
on the evidence that Frank Hohn walked a little differently than others,
his vision was "bothering him," and the doctors said that it is impossible
for a blind person to work in an industrial setting.
When the jury returned its verdict on August 3 of last year, Frank,
the legal team, and I were devastated. Personally I felt that I had let
down not only Frank, but all of you. How in the world could I possibly lose
a case when the evidence so clearly demonstrated that our client had been a
safe worker with no complaints? Once I got over the initial emotional
shock, I realized that the jury believed the doctors that the blind simply
don't belong in any kind of job other than one that involves sitting behind
a desk. Don't worry. We're not taking this lying down. We have appealed the
decision, and we intend to win!
The stereotype that we can only work desk jobs leads me to this
thought. As we all know, over 70 percent of the working-age blind are
unemployed. If we made a trade with society and said that, ok, we believe
you're wrong, but we will stay away from any job that doesn't involve
sitting behind a desk, and you, society, will employ us in such great
numbers that our unemployment rate will equal that of the sighted, maybe we
would take that trade, but, when we got behind that desk, fired up our
computers, and started trying to do the work, we would be likely to find
that a great deal of the software we would need to use was incompatible
with our screen-reading and other technology. Ah well, that's a topic for
another speech.
So we know what minar directae is and why it matters. What in the
world can we do about it? The answer to this is not complicated. As some
might say, we just got to keep on a truckin', keep bringing the cases,
changing the laws, and educating the public. We must transform the direct
threat doctrine from a weapon used to legalize discrimination against us
into a shield that protects us from unfounded fears and stereotypes about
blindness. Because of the tremendous leadership of Dr. tenBroek, Dr.
Jernigan, and Dr. Maurer, the many other terrific leaders who have imparted
great wisdom, and the thousands upon thousands of our members who have
worked hard over the years, we possess both the philosophy and resources
necessary to combat the prevailing stereotypes and misconceptions arrayed
against us.
As Dr. tenBroek said, the right to live in the world is more than a
right just to remain in it. Because we safely and successfully pursue just
about every activity known to humankind, we know our blindness does not
pose a direct threat to our health or safety, but our society has not
learned that lesson. Because we as a community have made great strides and
the future we face is brighter than ever, sometimes it is far too easy to
think that discrimination against us isn't a big problem anymore. We must
not fall into this trap and rest comfortably in blissful ignorance. We have
come too far along the path to freedom and first-class citizenship to stop
now. First-class citizenship is no longer just a fanciful dream. We must
make it our reality. We have touched the flame of freedom, and it has
ignited our hearts and minds. Nothing in this world will stop us, not minar
directae, not anything. If we remain true to our philosophy and focus
sharply on our objectives, we will be free. My brothers and sisters, we
will be free!
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Eve Hill]
The Policy of Integration Enforceable at Law
by Eve L. Hill
From the Editor: On Thursday afternoon, July 5, Eve Hill, senior
counselor to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, addressed the
convention. She is a nationally recognized expert on disability rights law.
She was senior vice president of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse
University and has been responsible for the Institute's disability rights
policy. Before that she was the founding director of the Washington, D.C.,
Office of Disability Rights, a cabinet-level office. She has been the
executive director of the Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles and
has written extensively on disability rights. She has worked with Dan
Goldstein, the NFB's lawyer for twenty-five years. This is what she said:
In America the phrase "civil rights" evokes a powerful emotion,
visions of the 1960s, Dr. King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,
protestors on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, students at lunch counters and
university doors; and similarly individuals with disabilities have faced
every day the indignities of not being able to enter a hotel swimming pool
or get on a public bus. We've been barred from attending school and getting
jobs. Individuals with disabilities have organized to fight for our civil
rights, incrementally working our way out from under the weight of immoral
laws, misguided social mores, and irrational fears, facing dozens of
defeats for each victory. I've sat in this audience and heard you sing "We
Shall Overcome" to my dear friend and colleague Dan Goldstein, and you have
earned that song.
The Americans with Disabilities Act literally opened millions of
doors for individuals with disabilities across the country. This law has
had implications no less important or far reaching than the landmark civil
rights laws of the 1960s, and in the two decades since its enactment the
ADA has revolutionized the way the rest of society in the United States and
beyond thinks about people with disabilities and the way people with
disabilities live in our communities. But that doesn't mean we're done.
Business owners, public officials, and the media still feel free to
state publicly the opinion that, because a ramp or an accessible piece of
technology costs money, that is a sufficient reason to deny people with
disabilities access. And they are not met without outrage; they're taken
seriously, as if even twenty-two years after the passage of the ADA and
nearly forty years after the passage of the Rehabilitation Act, the cost-
benefit analysis were the key to a civil rights law.
In the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, we still see
every single day, and I know you see it too, barriers facing individuals
with disabilities that stand in the way of allowing people to maximize the
contribution they make to society. And my boss Tom Perez and his boss
Attorney General Eric Holder and his boss, the President, are committed to
taking on that discrimination every day. [Applause]
So I want to talk to you about a few of our recent activities that
particularly affect people who are blind or who have low vision. In the
technology area, as Kareem mentioned, we know modern technologies pose
significant challenges, and we have to ensure that technologies don't leave
people with disabilities in their wake. The underlying theory of the ADA is
that we wouldn't make the existing world accessible all at once; we would
do that gradually as old things were replaced with new things. New
technology is where the rubber meets the road on that theory. These are new
things, and they should be born accessible. [Applause]
Technology has revolutionized our economy and our culture. It's made
communicating and obtaining information, entertainment, education, and
goods easier and more efficient. But many of these technologies from
websites to cell phones, from ticket kiosks to TV set-top devices are
either wholly or partly inaccessible to both to people who are blind or
people with other disabilities. It is the position of the Justice
Department since the late 1990s that the ADA applies to websites, including
websites and online services of online-only public accommodations.
Companies that do not consider accessibility in their website or
product development will come to regret that decision because we intend to
use every tool at our disposal to ensure that people with disabilities have
equal access to technology and the worlds the technology opens up. Most
recently we pursued accessible technology through two statements of
interest in National Association of the Deaf versus Netflix. The National
Association of the Deaf sued Netflix to require Netflix to caption its
online watch-instantly movies. We opposed Netflix's attempts to dismiss the
case. Our brief made clear that Title III of the ADA applies to online-only
businesses and requires their online services to be accessible. [Applause]
We also made clear that Netflix is responsible for making its online
services accessible and that the twenty-first century Communications and
Video Accessibility Act, CVAA, as great as it is, does not preempt
application of Title III of the ADA. The Massachusetts court twice now has
refused to dismiss the case and held that Title III covers online
businesses, covers online services even if they're accessed only in your
home, and that copyright doesn't necessarily preempt Title III and that the
CVAA doesn't preempt Title III. [Applause] Now why is this important for
blind people? It's brought by a deaf group. It's the same standard. If
online-only services have to be accessible for deaf people, they also have
to be accessible for blind people. [Applause]
This follows up on work we've done before, the 2011 settlement
agreement with the law school admission council to make its law school
website accessible to people with disabilities. And the department is also
addressing technology accessibility in its rulemaking. We issued advance
notice of proposed rulemaking on accessibility standards for websites and
expect to publish an NPRM [notice of proposed rulemaking] this year.
Now we're involved heavily in the education arena. I know you've
heard someone from the Department of Education, Seth Galanter, speak today.
But we're exercising our expanded ability to pursue complaints about
discrimination in public, private, and higher education. So in a number of
contexts we're challenging the argument that schools should have unfettered
discretion to decide what accommodations to permit as long as they comply
with procedures. So in K.M. v. Tustin Unified School District, we filed an
amicus brief on behalf of a student with hearing impairments who asked her
school for real-time captioning and was denied. The district court had
said, "Well she's getting a meaningful benefit from her education, and
that's all that's required under the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act." Our brief argued that Title II of the ADA applies a
different and in some cases sometimes greater standards than the IDEA, and
the schools have to look at both. So the ADA in this context required
effective communication, not only meaningful benefit, from the education.
[Applause] So again, although this case was on behalf of a deaf student, it
has the same standards that would apply to blind students and other
students with disabilities.
So under our approach a public school must consider, not just whether
the student is getting enough information from her school materials to
benefit from the education under the IDEA, but also under the ADA whether
the student is getting information that is equally effective as her
classmates.
In Argenyi v. Creighton University we filed an amicus brief in the
Eighth Circuit on behalf of a medical student with a hearing impairment who
needed captioning in class and an oral interpreter in clinics, and the
school had said, "No, we don't think that's appropriate. We don't need to
do that." Our brief argued that the university is not entitled to
unfettered deference in determining what auxiliary aids are required. This
case explores the limits on deference. Courts have traditionally given
schools a lot of leeway to decide: "Well we don't think that's good; we
don't think that's good; you can only have this." And we argued that they
should only get that kind of deference in making decisions about what the
degree should require, what the academic requirements are, not what
auxiliary aids should be provided. [Applause]
And there's more. We are also working to ensure that admissions and
license testing, whether for higher education or business certifications,
are accessible to people with disabilities. To that end we are requiring
testing providers to test in ways that best insure that the test measures
knowledge or skill, and not disability. We recognize that this standard is
not coextensive with reasonable modifications or effective communication
but may require more. We had previously filed a statement of interest in a
case of an NFB member seeking to take a multi-state professional
responsibility exam with auxiliary aids. And just last week we filed a
statement of interest in Department of Fair Employment and Housing versus
Law School Admission Council in California. The plaintiff in this case
claims that the Law School Admissions Council discriminates against test
takers with disabilities by requiring unreasonable levels of documentation,
by failing to make sure that the test best insures that it measures skill
and knowledge rather than disability, and by flagging accommodated test
scores. The department's brief argues that the new ADA regulations limiting
documentation are valid, that test providers can require only reasonable
documentation, and the department's brief argues for the first time that
flagging of accommodated scores, which calls out people as having gotten an
accommodation, is a violation of the ADA. [Applause]
We are not bored! Meanwhile we are working to end the tradition of
unnecessarily segregating people with disabilities in institutions. In 1999
with the Olmstead decision the Supreme Court answered the question posed
thirty-three years earlier by Dr. tenBroek in his article, "The Right to
Live in the World." He asked, "Are persons after all not to be persons if
they are physically disabled. Are members of the community to be robbed of
their rights to live in the community, their certificates cancelled upon
development or discovery of disability?" Olmstead established that Title II
of the ADA requires that people with disabilities in institutional settings
must be integrated in their communities when appropriate and that it is a
violation of the law to unnecessarily segregate them from society. It was
the Brown v. Board of Education of the disability rights movement, and Tom
Perez has led the department's efforts in this area. The department has
laid down the law with statements of interest in over thirty cases,
technical assistance documents, and case after case demonstrating that
people with developmental disabilities, mental health disabilities,
physical disabilities, vision disabilities, and every other kind of
disability, who are in or at risk of entering an institution, have rights
to community-based services.
Nothing in the ADA or the Integration Mandate is limited to
residential settings. The division has expanded its Olmstead work to look
beyond where people live to examine how people live. Simply moving someone
from an institution to a community-based residence does not achieve
community integration if that person is still denied meaningful, integrated
ways to spend their days and is denied the opportunity to do what we all
do, work in the community.
So last week we issued a letter of findings identifying Olmstead
violations in the state of Oregon's system of employment and vocational
services. We found that the state is violating Olmstead by unnecessarily
segregating into sheltered workshops individuals with disabilities who
could and want to work in integrated employment. [Applause] We found the
state unnecessarily funds sheltered workshops, that its schools and VR
systems unnecessarily place people in sheltered workshops, and that
subminimum wages and discrimination unnecessarily keep people there.
[Applause]
I have one more minute. I only want to say that attitudes are
shifting and they have a long way to go. And, as we work to take on these
long-standing barriers, we also tackle the emerging ones head on. We have
no illusions about the significance of the challenges ahead, but we will
move forward. Dr. King said that "The arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends towards justice." So let's all reach up, grab that arc, and
pull it towards people with disabilities. Thank you very much. [Applause]
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Sharon Maneki and Marsha Dyer]
Convention Resolutions
Leaving No Blind Person Behind
by Sharon Maneki
From the Editor: Sharon Maneki is the longtime chair of the
resolutions committee, and her annual performance leaves no doubt as to
why. Here, introducing and explaining the twenty-six resolutions presented
to the 2012 convention of the National Federation of the Blind, is Sharon's
article.
During the resolutions committee meeting on July 1, 2012, Alex
Castillo used the term "leaving no blind person behind" as he urged the
committee to support a resolution. I believe that leaving no blind person
behind is a good general description of the thrust of the twenty-four
resolutions passed by the Convention this year.
In 2001 Congress passed an act to close the achievement gap with
accountability, flexibility, and choice so that no child is left behind.
The sentiment of this reform legislation was to ensure that all students
have an equal opportunity for quality education from the public school
systems. The twenty-four resolutions passed by the Convention outline our
current goals and policies to ensure that no blind person is left behind in
employment opportunities, quality education, participation in the benefits
of health care, and access to information.
I was privileged to chair the resolutions committee again this year
and was delighted to work with the charming and capable Marsha Dyer, who
served as secretary to the committee. We followed many of the time-honored
traditions of the resolutions process such as having a large committee--
thirty-four members--with broad representation from all of the states. Many
of the resolutions' proponents had firsthand experience with the issues
outlined in their resolutions. The meeting was particularly stimulating
because of their poignant arguments.
The resolutions committee and the process of defining our policies
always include elements of surprise. The committee considered and sent
twenty-six resolutions to the Convention. On July 4 the Convention, which
is the supreme authority of the Federation, passed twenty-four resolutions
and defeated two of them. Resolution 2012-10 was about accessibility
ratings and a refund policy on the applications Apple sells. The resolution
was sponsored by Romeo Edmead, a member of the board of directors of the
New York affiliate, a National Scholarship winner in 2001, and a 2012 NFB
Fellow. The Convention voted this resolution down because, while many
applications are not accessible, many are, and we did not choose to
criticize Apple at this time.
The Convention defeated resolution 2012-08 because it violated
Federation philosophy by promoting the medical model of blindness. Almost
50 years ago, in a speech entitled "Blindness: Handicap or Characteristic,"
Dr. Kenneth Jernigan explained that "philosophy bakes no bread, but without
a philosophy no bread is baked." Many medical professionals believe that
blindness is a kind of dying. As Dr. Jernigan put it, "Blindness is merely
a characteristic." This resolution would have clarified that blindness
technology and equipment such as a white cane should be covered by Medicare
Part B, which covers the cost of medical equipment. Amy Buresh, a member of
the national board of directors and president of the NFB of Nebraska,
sponsored this resolution.
Because of its dynamic philosophy throughout its seventy-two years of
existence, the National Federation of the Blind has been able to make
progress in ensuring that no blind person is left behind. In a speech
entitled "Blindness: Concepts and Misconceptions," delivered in 1965 in
Washington, D. C., Dr. Jernigan described our philosophy this way: "When an
individual becomes blind, he faces two major problems: first, he must learn
the skills and techniques which will enable him to carry on as a normal,
productive citizen in the community; and, second, he must become aware of
and learn to cope with public attitudes and misconceptions about
blindness...." Dr. Jernigan continued: "The first of these problems is far
easier to solve than the second. For it is no longer theory but established
fact that, with proper training and opportunity, the average blind person
can do the average job in the average place of business and do it as well
as his sighted neighbor.... In other words, the real problem of blindness
is not the blindness itself--not the acquisition of skills or techniques or
competence. The real problem is the lack of understanding and the
misconceptions which exist."
Because of myths and misconceptions held by child welfare workers,
judges, and other court officials, blind parents, guardians, and caregivers
face discrimination in adoption, custody, visitation, care, placement, and
other related procedures. To combat these problems, Marsha Drenth, vice
president of the Pennsylvania parents of blind children and secretary of
the Keystone Chapter of the NFB of Pennsylvania, introduced resolution 2012-
11. Marsha's argument for the resolution was passionate because she has
three children and has faced devastating custody problems. In this
resolution we strongly urge every state legislature to protect blind
parents and caregivers from discrimination, by enacting model legislation
proposed by the National Federation of the Blind. We also call upon bar
associations, the National Association of Social Workers, and other child
welfare organizations and their local chapters to develop educational
programs in consultation with the National Federation of the Blind to
inform personnel who make child-placement and care decisions about the
capabilities of blind parents, caregivers, and guardians.
Several Federationists felt compelled to write resolutions about
Dining in the Dark activities and events. These activities are a modern
example of the public misconceptions that Dr. Jernigan was addressing in
his 1965 speech that I quoted above. Jim Gashel, secretary of the National
Federation of the Blind, and Kevan Worley, a longtime leader in the
Federation, came up with the final draft of the resolution that the
committee and Convention passed. In resolution 2012-04 we condemn and
deplore the use of Dining in the Dark when it is conducted in a way that
diminishes the innate normality and equal status of the blind in society.
The Convention passed four resolutions dealing with employment issues.
Public attitudes still limit our employment opportunities. Our long battle
to eliminate the practice by certain employers of paying workers with
disabilities less than the minimum wage is not only an example of how blind
people are left behind but also an illustration of the negative attitudes
that are the real problem of blindness. Anil Lewis, director of strategic
communications for the Federation, proposed resolution 2012-01. The
resolution reads in part: "The truth is that segregated subminimum-wage
work environments are not transitional job-training service providers for
workers with disabilities, as shown by data from a U.S. Government
Accountability Office report that less than 5 percent of workers with
disabilities transition into mainstream employment; moreover, research
conducted by Dr. Robert Cimera of Kent State University shows that work
habits learned in a segregated work environment must be unlearned in order
for workers with disabilities to become competitively employed." In this
resolution we also call upon the Education and Workforce Committee of the
U.S. House of Representatives to conduct an immediate hearing on H.R. 3086,
the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act, in order to separate myth
from reality and to learn the truth about the employment capacity of people
with disabilities.
It was most appropriate that two successful entrepreneurs proposed
resolution 2012-26. The proponents were Nicky Gacos, president of the
National Association of Blind Merchants, and Kevan Worley, executive
director of the National Association of Blind Merchants. The Javits-Wagner-
O'Day act should include provisions for people with disabilities to take
part in all aspects of business, including owning a business and executing
contracts awarded under the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act. We urge the U. S.
Congress to make these changes to the Act quickly.
County and municipal governments are enhancing their services to
residents through technology. These governments are creating multi-channel
contact centers to give citizens direct access by 311 direct telephone
support through live agents or by interactive voice-response systems or
using the web. Some of the software-development companies that design multi-
channel contact center technologies have nonvisual access features, but
even these features are optional. Some governments, such as Montgomery
County, Maryland, refuse to implement the nonvisual access features. To
address this problem, Yasmin Reyazuddin, a leader in the Maryland affiliate
who has firsthand experience with this problem, introduced Resolution 2012-
07. In it we demand that all software development companies enhance
employment opportunities for the blind by immediately discontinuing the
practice of designing nonvisual access as an optional feature.
Isaiah Wilcox, a 2012 NFB Fellow, treasurer of the Georgia affiliate,
and a 2008 national scholarship winner, sponsored Resolution 2012-09. The
U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
(OFCCP) is currently revising the nondiscrimination and affirmative action
provisions of Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. In 2012-09 we call
upon OFCCP to take swift action to implement these new regulations.
The Convention passed five resolutions to ensure that blind students
at all levels of education are not left behind. Holly Miller, a member of
the board of directors of the National Organization of Parents of Blind
Children, wanted to make sure that no other parent or student has to go
through the struggle for Braille instruction that she and her son Hank
endured. In Resolution 2012-03, which she sponsored, the National
Federation of the Blind calls upon U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
to take immediate action to ensure that blind students are taught the
skills of literacy.
Braille is crucial for education and for full participation in
community life. In Resolution 2012-13 we call upon the Braille Authority of
North America (BANA) to adopt the symbols and rules of the Unified English
Braille system as the standard for general purpose, nontechnical materials.
The National Federation of the Blind also expresses its strong support for
the continued use of the current Nemeth Braille Code as the standard for
the teaching and production of mathematical materials. Jennifer Dunnam,
president of the NFB of Minnesota and the Federation's representative on
the BANA board, sponsored this resolution. As Jennifer explained, this
resolution is necessary to reduce conflicts and ambiguities in the current
Braille system.
Pearson is the largest publishing company in the world for textbooks
and courseware designed for use in institutions of higher education.
Jessica Beecham, the proponent of Resolution 2012-16, expressed her deep
frustration with the lack of access to Pearson products. Part of the
resolution she sponsored says that the National Federation of the Blind
"condemns Pearson and deplores its discrimination against blind students
and its lack of transparency in refusing to release its accessibility
statement and to educate the public on the purported accessibility features
of its products." Jessica Beecham was a national scholarship winner in 2011
and currently serves as the chapter and community development coordinator
for the NFB of Colorado.
Harriet Go, a tenBroek fellow who won national scholarships in 2012
and 2003 and who is the secretary of both the Pennsylvania affiliate and
the National Organization of Blind Educators, proposed Resolution 2012-22.
In 2008 the U.S. Congress created the Commission on Accessible
Instructional Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students with
Disabilities (the AIM Commission). In part the resolution calls upon the
members of the U.S. Congress to act upon the report of the AIM Commission
by immediately authorizing the U.S. Access Board to establish guidelines
for accessible instructional materials that will be used by government, in
the private sector, and in post-secondary academic institutions.
Readers of the Braille Monitor are familiar with the Law School
Admission Council's practice of denying accommodations to applicants with
disabilities who wish to take the Law School Admissions Test. Renowned
civil rights lawyer and president of the National Association of Blind
Lawyers and the NFB of Colorado Scott LaBarre sponsored Resolution 2012-25:
"We applaud and commend the American Bar Association for sending a strong
and clear message to the Law School Admissions Council that it must stop
its discrimination against test applicants with disabilities."
Access to healthcare is a politically charged topic for all
Americans. It was most appropriate for the Convention to pass four
resolutions addressing the unique barriers to accessible healthcare that
blind people face. These resolutions are important goals in our quest to
leave no blind person behind. Debbie Wunder, who wears many leadership hats
in the NFB of Missouri including president of the Diabetes Action Network
and chairman of the special projects and outreach committee, introduced
Resolution 2012-21. A recipient wishing coverage under Part B of Medicare
who has previously opted out is assessed a monthly penalty in addition to
the premium for this service, unless the recipient can show coverage by an
employer-based group health plan for the time in which he or she was
eligible for this coverage. The resolution stated that: "This organization
call upon Congress to amend the Social Security Act by removing the
requirement to show proof of coverage by an employer-based group health
plan and replacing it with a requirement to show insurance comparable to
Medicare Part B coverage."
The quality of healthcare has been improving dramatically through the
use of new technologies. In the remaining three healthcare resolutions we
demand nonvisual access to these new technologies. Urgent care facilities
are replacing the receptionist and paper-and-pen check-in systems with
touchscreen tablet computers. In Resolution 2012-17 we urge medical
facilities to procure and deploy only accessible tablets so that blind
patients can check in independently and have the same level of privacy as
their sighted peers. Thera Morning, a leader in the NFB of Maryland,
sponsored this resolution.
Mike Freeman, president of the Diabetes Action Network and the NFB of
Washington as well as a national board member, and Tom Ley, former
president of the Diabetes Action Network, introduced Resolution 2012-05.
Since both these men have diabetes and Tom's son is also a diabetic, access
to the artificial pancreas could dramatically improve their quality of
life. The artificial pancreas currently being developed incorporates an
insulin pump, continuous glucose monitor, and smart controller to measure
blood sugar automatically, then determine and deliver the right amount of
insulin or glucose at the right time. Diabetes is the leading cause of
blindness. Yet the federal government and healthcare advocacy organizations
make little effort to encourage the manufacture of nonvisual accessible
diabetes management technologies. The resolution demands that "this
organization strongly urge the Food and Drug Administration to approve an
artificial pancreas only when it is fully accessible to blind and low-
vision diabetics."
Mary Jo Hartle, a new parent and a longtime leader in the Federation
from first Utah and now Maryland who was a tenBroek Fellow who won national
scholarships in 2002 and 2004, proposed Resolution 2012-24. "Despite the
availability of access technology that allows electronic and digital at-
home medical equipment to provide audio output to users, infant apnea
monitors, home dialysis equipment, electronic thermometers, and many other
forms of at-home medical equipment remain largely or completely
inaccessible to the blind." In Resolution 2012-24 this organization demands
that manufacturers of at-home medical equipment make their products
accessible to blind users so that the civil right of access to this
equipment is preserved.
The Convention passed nine resolutions about access to information.
Two cover instructions to the federal government concerning access, two of
them deal with access to library information, and the remaining five
address access to specific products. Alex Castillo, an NFB 2012 Fellow and
the immediate past president of the New York Association of Blind Students,
who is currently living and working in Nebraska, introduced Resolution 2012-
02. "The United States Department of State has announced its intention to
partner with Amazon.com to create a global e-reader program known as the
Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative.... This organization demands that the
United States Department of State refuse to procure any e-reading
technology that is inaccessible and that it uphold its obligations under
the law as prescribed in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act."
Kyle Shachmut, a 2012 NFB Fellow and a member of the board of
directors of the Massachusetts affiliate and president of its student
division, is also a tenBroek Fellow who won scholarships in 2009 and 2011.
Kyle sponsored Resolution 2012-12. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
requires that all electronic and information technology that is developed,
procured, maintained, or used by the federal government must be accessible
to disabled Americans. This organization strongly urges the Access Board to
continue working diligently to refresh the Section 508 standards and finish
this rulemaking swiftly so that the technical standards and accessibility
guidelines under the law reflect changes in technology.
The first of the two resolutions concerning access to library
information applies to all public libraries, while the second applies only
to the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. A
number of public libraries have started to lend e-books and e-reading
devices in an attempt to open their collections to a broader range of
patrons. This trend promises to offer blind people unprecedented
opportunities for reading books. In Resolution 2012-06 this organization
calls upon all public libraries to take immediate action to provide e-books
and e-reading devices that are fully accessible to blind people in order to
comply with federal law and to ensure that blind patrons have the ability
to use these devices and to access the information that they provide. James
Brown, a 2012 NFB Fellow and president of the NFB of Tennessee who won a
National Scholarship in 2007, sponsored this resolution.
Dan Hicks, president of the NFB of Florida, proposed Resolution 2012-
15. "This organization calls upon the National Library Service for the
Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress immediately to
modify its standards for Braille and audio production of books and
magazines to include portrayals or explanations of all cartoons,
caricatures, and drawings included in these publications, including reading
all captions, unless they are part of advertisements."
Resolution 2012-19 is the most unusual of the five access-to-products
resolutions in this article because it describes cutting-edge research. In
the remaining four the methods to achieve access are known. What is missing
is the will to provide nonvisual access. Automobile manufacturers are
working to develop driverless vehicles, and many of them have already
integrated autonomous components like automatic parallel parking and
adaptive cruise control. Nevada and Florida have enacted legislation
legalizing the operation of these vehicles on public roads. In Resolution
2012-19 we demand that autonomous vehicle manufacturers include nonvisual
interfaces that will allow a blind person to operate the vehicle
independently. In this resolution we also encourage other states to follow
Nevada and Florida's lead. Kimie Beverly, a tenBroek Fellow who won
national scholarships in 2003 and 2012 and is secretary of the NFB of
Nevada, sponsored this resolution.
The remaining four resolutions were sponsored by ardent, articulate
debaters. Corbb O'Connor, a 2012 NFB Fellow and a leader in the Virginia
affiliate who also won national scholarships in 2006 and 2009, making him a
tenBroek Fellow, introduced resolution 2012-20. Resolution 2012-14 was
proposed by Jeannie Massay, a 2012 NFB Fellow, president of the NFB of
Oklahoma, and a 2009 national scholarship winner. A webmaster and member of
the board of directors of the NFB of Texas, Tom Stivers, introduced
resolution 2012-18. Justin Salisbury, immediate past president of the North
Carolina Association of Blind Students and a 2011 national scholarship
winner, sponsored resolution 2012-23. An examination of the resolve
sections of each of these resolutions illustrates the deep frustration that
blind people feel toward these companies because of their blatant refusal
to provide access.
Resolution 2012-20 concerning the Nook concludes in part with a
resolve that "this organization urge Barnes & Noble to continue to work
assiduously in providing a product line that is accessible to blind users,
including an accessible online bookstore."
The resolve in resolution 2012-14 states that: "This organization
condemn and deplore Amazon.com's repeated discrimination against the blind
because it knowingly and purposely developed and launched models of the
Kindle that are completely inaccessible despite its awareness of
accessibility solutions and its repeatedly stated interest in meeting the
needs of blind consumers."
In Resolution 2012-18 the Convention resolved that, "This
organization condemn and deplore Adobe's complete and utter lack of
commitment to accessibility." (The Adobe suite of products includes Flash,
a product for watching videos, animation, and rich Internet content;
InDesign, a package for digital publishing; Dreamweaver, a product for
creating websites; and Contribute, Premier, Photoshop, Acrobat, and other
products used for creating, editing, accessing, and publishing content.)
Finally, resolution 2012-23 resolves that "this organization condemn
and deplore Microsoft's failure to update the Xbox 360 console so that it
is accessible to blind users." "Unlike its predecessor, which was
exclusively a gaming console, the Xbox 360 is used for streaming a variety
of content onto a television, including trailers, shows, music, and movies,
and hosting Microsoft's Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities and
gaming; and is Microsoft's main channel for reaching individual consumers,
meaning that blind users cannot use information that Microsoft distributes
over the console."
This article is merely an introductory discussion of the resolutions
considered by the Convention. By longstanding tradition the complete text
of each resolution that was passed is reprinted below. These resolutions
outline our commitment to make sure that no blind person is left behind.
Readers should study the text of each resolution to understand fully our
policy on these subjects.
----------
The 2012 Resolutions of the National Federation of the Blind
Resolution 2012-01
Regarding Support for the Fair Wages
for Workers with Disabilities Act of 2011
WHEREAS, since its founding in 1940, the National Federation of the
Blind has fought to repeal the unfair, discriminatory, and immoral
provision found in Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of
1938, which allows the secretary of labor to grant special wage
certificates to employers permitting them to pay their workers with
disabilities less than the minimum wage; and
WHEREAS, Section 14(c) of the FLSA is a statutory assertion of the
negative attitudes and erroneous stereotypes that perpetuate the
unemployment and exacerbate the under-employment of people with
disabilities, based on the fallacious argument that they cannot be
productive and therefore deserve to be paid less than nondisabled
employees; and
WHEREAS, Section 14(c) of the FLSA was to be used only "to the extent
necessary to prevent curtailment of opportunities" for employment of people
with disabilities, but has instead resulted in the creation of an industry
of over 3,000 exploitive work environments for over 300,000 workers with
disabilities being paid wages significantly lower than the federal minimum
wage; and
WHEREAS, data from the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour
Division show that over 90 percent of the special wage certificates are
held by nonprofit sheltered workshop employers; and
WHEREAS, these subminimum-wage employers, having a vested financial
interest in the continuation of the public and philanthropic subsidies that
prop up their subminimum-wage business model, are actively lobbying against
the repeal of Section 14(c); and
WHEREAS, to combat the efforts of those that would continue to
exploit people with disabilities as second class workers, the members of
the National Federation of the Blind will continue to raise public
awareness about this issue through boycotts, protests, and educational
forums to speak the truth about Section 14(c); and
WHEREAS, the truth is that segregated subminimum-wage work
environments are not transitional job-training service providers for
workers with disabilities, as shown by data from a U.S. Government
Accountability Office report that less than five percent of workers with
disabilities transition into mainstream employment; moreover, research
conducted by Dr. Robert Cimera of Kent State University shows that work
habits learned in a segregated work environment must be unlearned in order
for workers with disabilities to become competitively employed; and
WHEREAS, the truth is that the payment of subminimum wages is not an
incentive for mainstream employers to hire workers with disabilities;
mainstream employers want a productive workforce, and the solution is to
provide people with disabilities with the proper training and support to be
productive employees; and
WHEREAS, if people are too severely disabled to perform competitive
work, our society can still do better for them than condemning them to
drudgery day after day earning pennies an hour; and
WHEREAS, the members of the National Federation of the Blind resolved
in Convention assembled the seventh day of July, 2011, in the city of
Orlando, Florida, to call upon the United States Congress to introduce and
pass the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act of 2011; and
WHEREAS, on October 4, 2011, Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida
introduced H.R. 3086, the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act of
2011, to phase out the use of special wage certificates over a three-year
period and eventually to repeal Section 14(c) of the FLSA; and
WHEREAS, the lead co-sponsor of H.R. 3086, Congressman Tim Bishop of
New York, has been joined by eighty additional cosponsors of this landmark
piece of disability rights legislation: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization commend Congressman Stearns, Congressman Bishop, and all
other cosponsors of H.R. 3086, the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities
Act, for having the courage, creativity, and belief in the capacity of
people with disabilities to advance the legislation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the Education
and Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives to conduct an
immediate hearing on H.R. 3086 in order to separate myth from reality and
to learn the truth about the employment capacity of people with
disabilities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the United
States Congress to pass this legislation with all due speed, repealing
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act and freeing workers with
disabilities from nearly seventy-five years of discriminatory wage
practices; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we condemn and deplore every entity that
continues to exploit people with disabilities through the payment of
subminimum wages.
----------
Resolution 2012-02
Regarding the United States Department of State
and Amazon Kindle Digital Learning Initiative
WHEREAS, the right to read is critical and fundamental to full
participation in society; and
WHEREAS, unlike print, the digital information in electronic books is
inherently accessible to the blind and becomes inaccessible only because
proprietary technology, such as dedicated inaccessible e-readers, makes
electronic books inaccessible; and
WHEREAS, as the increasingly rapid transition from print-only media
to digital information continues, it is critical that the blind and others
with print disabilities not be left behind and excluded from accessing this
information equally; and
WHEREAS, some mainstream commercial e-book reading devices and
platforms, such as Apple's iPad and the K-NFB Blio, are accessible to the
blind; and
WHEREAS, Amazon.com's Kindle e-readers are among the dominant
dedicated e-book reading devices in the marketplace; and
WHEREAS, despite years of attempts by the National Federation of the
Blind and other organizations to assist and educate Amazon.com, it has
failed to make its Kindle e-book readers fully accessible to the blind; and
WHEREAS, the United States Department of State has announced its
intention to partner with Amazon.com to create a global e-reader program
known as the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative, intended to create a global
e-reader program that introduces aspects of U.S. society and culture
directly to young people, students, and international audiences in new ways
and expands English-language-learning opportunities worldwide; and
WHEREAS, as part of this initiative the United States Department of
State is pursuing a contract with Amazon.com, Inc., for the acquisition of
35,000 Kindle e-readers at an anticipated cost of 16.5 million dollars; and
WHEREAS, the State Department's proposal for this contract contains
no provisions to ensure that these e-book readers will be accessible to the
blind, in direct contravention of the Department's legal obligations under
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and of the right of the world's blind
to have equal access to information: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization demand that the United States Department of State refuse
to procure any e-reading technology that is inaccessible and that the
United States Department of State uphold its obligations under the law as
prescribed in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization condemn and deplore
Amazon.com's failure to make its Kindle e-book readers fully accessible to
the blind and insist that Amazon.com immediately make its product line of
Kindle e-book readers and all future e-book readers fully accessible to the
blind.
----------
Resolution 2012-03
Regarding the Presumption of Braille Instruction
WHEREAS, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
states that, when developing an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) for a
child who is blind, the IEP team shall "provide for instruction in Braille
and the use of Braille unless the IEP team determines, after an evaluation
of the child's reading and writing skills, needs, and appropriate reading
and writing media (including an evaluation of the child's future needs for
the instruction of Braille or the use of Braille), that instruction in
Braille or the use of Braille is not appropriate for the child"; and
WHEREAS, despite this clear legislative language in support of
Braille literacy, current regulation does not provide school districts with
adequate guidance in developing, reviewing, and revising the IEP; and
WHEREAS, parents and advocates who request Braille instruction for
their children with blindness or low vision far too often meet resistance
from members of their IEP teams; and
WHEREAS, such resistance causes students to be unable to access grade-
level curriculum because they lack proficiency in Braille; and
WHEREAS, while this achievement gap persists, student ability to
compete with sighted peers for postsecondary opportunities and employment
is significantly compromised; and
WHEREAS, this literacy gap is both unnecessary and preventable; and
WHEREAS, recognizing that instruction in Braille closely parallels
instruction in print, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and John Boozman (R-AR)
circulated a Dear Colleague letter in the United States Senate; and
WHEREAS, this Dear Colleague letter strongly urges the U.S.
Department of Education to engage stakeholder groups to develop new IDEA
regulations related to the development of an IEP for a student with
blindness or low vision; and
WHEREAS, new regulations should carry out the intent of Congress that
students with blindness or low vision must receive Braille instruction; and
WHEREAS, this new regulation should place the burden on the IEP team
to deny Braille instruction based on an individual student assessment,
rather than on parents to prove that their child needs Braille: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization commend Senators Murray and Boozman for circulating this
Dear Colleague letter in support of Braille literacy; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we thank the twenty-four senators that
joined as cosigners of this Dear Colleague letter; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Federation of the Blind call
upon Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to take swift action to address the
concerns stated in the Dear Colleague letter to ensure that blind students
are taught the skills of literacy.
----------
Resolution 2012-04
Regarding Dining in the Dark
WHEREAS, the real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight
but the widespread public misconception that the blind are not equal to the
sighted in society; and
WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind categorically rejects
the myth that the blind are not equal to the sighted; and
WHEREAS, programs of the National Federation of the Blind teach and
promote a positive understanding of blindness, that the blind are normal
and equal members of society, and that blindness does not mean inferiority;
and
WHEREAS, an activity known as "Dining in the Dark" is being promoted
and used to raise funds by having sighted people experience blindness by
eating in the dark; and
WHEREAS, an article published in Time magazine entitled "Dining in
the Dark" assures would-be diners that the cook "works in a well-lit
kitchen"; and
WHEREAS, the Dining in the Dark website--www.dininginthedark.org--
states: "you will pick from a specially prepared menu (designed by a
sighted local 'star' chef)" and "In darkness everyone becomes equal. Our
opinions can't be molded by dress, mannerisms, or makeup as none of it can
be seen. You learn that without sight your other senses become more acute";
and
WHEREAS, these statements lay bare the underlying philosophy of
Dining in the Dark, that sight means superior ability, and that, when sight
is removed in the dark, the blind and the sighted are equal: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization condemn and deplore the use of Dining in the Dark in a
manner that diminishes the innate normality and equal status of the blind
in society; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization pursue an active policy
of opposition to Dining in the Dark activities and events, including use of
media and public protests, whenever and wherever such activities and events
exploit blindness and blind people based on a demeaning philosophy.
----------
Resolution 2012-05
Regarding Access to the Artificial Pancreas
WHEREAS, health for people with diabetes has improved dramatically
with the use of modern diabetes-management technologies; and
WHEREAS, the latest example of such a technology currently under
development is the artificial pancreas, which incorporates an insulin pump,
continuous glucose monitor, and smart controller to measure blood sugar
automatically, then determine and deliver the right amount of insulin or
glucose at the right time; and
WHEREAS, blind and low-vision diabetics are currently deprived of the
health benefits that these technologies offer because manufacturers have
not included nonvisual access features in insulin pumps and continuous
glucose monitors, even though some of these technologies have been in
existence for nearly thirty years; and
WHEREAS, government regulators and policy makers have failed to
protect blind and low-vision diabetics from such blatant discrimination by
not developing accessibility standards, by not tying research dollars to
the inclusion of accessibility, by not establishing nonvisual criteria as
part of the procurement process, and by not requiring accessibility for
payment by government programs such as Medicare; and
WHEREAS, diabetes and medical organizations, such as the American
Diabetes Association, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the
American Association of Diabetes Educators, and the American Medical
Association, do not use their influence to advocate for nonvisual access
for blind and low-vision diabetics, even though statistics clearly
demonstrate that diabetes is increasing to epidemic proportions, so more
people are experiencing vision loss; and
WHEREAS, since the artificial pancreas is currently undergoing
clinical trials, the Food and Drug Administration now has the perfect
opportunity to rectify past mistakes and to eliminate health inequities and
barriers to independence for blind and low-vision diabetics: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization strongly urge the Food and Drug Administration to approve
an artificial pancreas only when it is fully accessible to blind and low-
vision diabetics; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that government
regulators and policy makers take immediate steps to require nonvisual
access in all diabetes technologies; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon associations
that promote quality health care for people with diabetes to join with the
National Federation of the Blind so that the promise of advanced diabetes
technology becomes a reality for all people with diabetes, including those
who are blind or have low vision.
----------
Resolution 2012-06
Regarding Accessible Reading Platforms
and Library Services
WHEREAS, blind people have historically been unable to access
information contained in public libraries because library collections are
primarily in print; and
WHEREAS, the only library that provides completely accessible
information for blind patrons is the National Library Service for the Blind
and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress (NLS); and
WHEREAS, the NLS program is able to produce only 2,000 new audio
titles each year, a number that is less than one percent of the number of
new titles published each year in print; and
WHEREAS, a number of public libraries have started to lend e-books
and e-reading devices in an attempt to open their collections to a broader
range of patrons; and
WHEREAS, technology currently exists to make e-books and e-reading
devices fully accessible to blind patrons; and
WHEREAS, despite this technology's being available to public
libraries, many continue to procure and deploy inaccessible e-books and e-
reading devices; and
WHEREAS, many libraries started deploying these inaccessible e-books
and e-reading devices, even after the Department of Education circulated a
Dear Colleague letter and a frequently asked questions document outlining
their obligations as federally funded institutions to purchase accessible e-
books, e-reading devices, and other technology: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization call upon all public libraries to take immediate action
to provide e-books and e-reading devices that are fully accessible to blind
people in order to comply with federal law and to ensure that blind patrons
have the ability to use these devices and to access the information that
they provide.
----------
Resolution 2012-07
Regarding Accessibility of Local Government
Multichannel Contact Centers
WHEREAS, for many years businesses have been streamlining their
customer service operations by providing technologies that allow customers
to pay bills, purchase goods, ask questions, or register complaints at any
time at the customer's convenience; and
WHEREAS, county and municipal governments are following this trend by
using these technologies to create multichannel contact centers to give
citizens direct access by 311 direct telephone support through live agents
or by interactive voice-response systems or via the web; and
WHEREAS, many blind Americans are successfully employed as customer
service representatives or other highly skilled technicians in multichannel
contact centers; and
WHEREAS, Oracle's Siebel Contact Centers, an industry leader in
customer-relationship-management applications, includes nonvisual access
but allows the clients to customize the software, including the option to
omit all nonvisual access; and
WHEREAS, many local government clients will not implement Siebel's
nonvisual access, claiming that the implementation either is too expensive
or limits the call center's ability to respond to some citizen inquiries;
and
WHEREAS, nonvisual access, when properly designed, can be an integral
part of the entire software package, which covers all of the features and
is easy for clients to implement; and
WHEREAS, inadequate or nonexistent nonvisual access must not serve as
the excuse for separate-but-equal treatment of blind employees or the
denial of employment to qualified blind people; and
WHEREAS, the Public Technology Institute (PTI) is a professional
organization for technology executives in local government, which according
to its website "challenges local governments to achieve high standards in
citizen participation, seamless service delivery, and democratic
accountability by making access to government services and information
available through multiple channels: web, civic media, interactive voice
response, and 311 call centers"; and
WHEREAS, the PTI does not include nonvisual access anywhere on its
website and presented one of its 2011-2012 Technology Solution Awards to
Montgomery County, Maryland, despite that government's blatant refusal to
implement nonvisual access in its Oracle Siebel Contact Center: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization demand that all software development companies enhance
employment opportunities for the blind by immediately discontinuing the
practice of designing nonvisual access as an optional feature; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that every local
government using a multichannel contact center stop discriminating against
blind employees and take advantage of the untapped talents that they can
offer by adopting available nonvisual access features; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization strongly encourage the
Public Technology Institute to adopt nonvisual access as one of the
requirements for its Solution Awards programs.
----------
Resolution 2012-08 did not pass.
----------
Resolution 2012-09
Regarding Proposed Section 503 Rule
WHEREAS, the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking
related to Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act; and
WHEREAS, this proposed rule would revise the regulations implementing
the nondiscrimination and affirmative action provisions of Section 503 of
the Rehabilitation Act; and
WHEREAS, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibits
discrimination by covered federal contractors and subcontractors against
individuals on the basis of disability and requires affirmative action on
behalf of qualified individuals with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, despite the requirements of Section 503, 2010 statistics
from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only
21.8 percent of working-age individuals with certain functional
disabilities were in the labor force compared to 70.1 percent of working-
age individuals without such disabilities; and
WHEREAS, strong actions must be taken to address this staggering
disparity; and
WHEREAS, the proposed rule would require each federal contractor and
subcontractor to "review its personnel processes on at least an annual
basis to ensure that its obligations are being met," "ensure that its use
of information and communication technology is accessible to applicants and
employees with disabilities," "enter into linkage agreements and create
relationships with the local vocational rehabilitation office" near their
establishments, and disseminate reasonable accommodation procedures to all
employees; and
WHEREAS, the proposed rule would also establish a utilization goal
for hiring individuals with disabilities to serve as a benchmark that will
help to identify which contractors are complying with Section 503; and
WHEREAS, OFCCP is also considering adding a secondary utilization for
targeted disabilities to the proposed rule to ensure that these groups are
not left behind by federal contractors: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization call upon the Office of Federal Contract Compliance
Programs to take swift action to implement the new regulations under
Section 503; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge that in the final
rule OFCCP establish a secondary utilization goal for targeted
disabilities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that no employee making below the federal
minimum wage be counted towards a contractor's quota to meet the newly
established utilization goal.
----------
Resolution 2012-10 did not pass.
----------
Resolution 2012-11
Regarding Protection of the Right to Parent Children
WHEREAS, one of the greatest responsibilities that human beings have
is the parenting and care of children; and
WHEREAS, blind people are as capable of parenting and caring for
children as their sighted peers; and
WHEREAS, the myths and misconceptions about blindness held by judges,
child welfare officers, and social workers frequently cause them to raise
questions about the capabilities of blind parents, caregivers, and
guardians, even when there is no evidence of difficulty, danger, or
neglect; and
WHEREAS, hospital officials and other child welfare workers have
tried to remove infants from their homes simply because both parents are
blind; and
WHEREAS, blind people's capabilities are called into question in many
proceedings involving child placement, care, custody, visitation, adoption,
guardianship, child welfare, and related matters; and
WHEREAS, in divorce cases in which one spouse is sighted and the
other is blind, the sighted spouse frequently uses blindness as a weapon to
gain custody of the child, even when the blind spouse has been successfully
providing care for years, and judges and court investigators accept this
specious argument because of their own lack of knowledge about blindness;
and
WHEREAS, only five states have laws protecting the rights of disabled
parents, guardians, and caregivers to care for children; and
WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind has an excellent record
of creating model civil rights legislation and conducting public education
campaigns to implement such legislation; and
WHEREAS, lawyers, judges, and child welfare professionals are
required to maintain their skills by taking continuing education courses:
Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization strongly urge all state legislatures to adopt legislation
proposed by the National Federation of the Blind prohibiting discrimination
on the basis of blindness in proceedings involving childcare, custody and
visitation, adoption, guardianship, child welfare, and related matters; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the bar
associations, the National Association of Social Workers, and other child
welfare organizations and their local chapters to develop educational
programs in consultation with the National Federation of the Blind to
inform personnel who make child placement and care decisions about the
capabilities of blind parents, caregivers, and guardians.
----------
Resolution 2012-12
Regarding the Section 508 Refresh
WHEREAS, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that all
electronic and information technology that is developed, procured,
maintained, or used by the federal government must be accessible to
disabled Americans; and
WHEREAS, Congress gave regulatory authority to the Architectural and
Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, also known as the U.S. Access
Board, to update the technical standards and accessibility guidelines for
electronic and information technology under Section 508 periodically so
that they are current; and
WHEREAS, in March of 2010 the Access Board began a much-needed update
of the technical standards and accessibility guidelines under Section 508
by issuing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) with proposed
changes to the standards; and
WHEREAS, the March 2010 ANPRM outlined proposed changes that were
partly based on recommendations made by the Telecommunications and
Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee, a committee with
several members from the National Federation of the Blind, that reviewed
the standards and recommended changes to the Access Board in 2008; and
WHEREAS, on December 8, 2011, the Access Board issued a second ANPRM,
updating its proposed changes to reflect feedback received from
stakeholders after the first ANPRM and streamlining the structure of the
proposed changes so that they would be more succinct and easy for
stakeholders to read; and
WHEREAS, on January 11, 2012, the National Federation of the Blind
and other stakeholders testified at a hearing hosted by the Access Board
regarding the proposed changes in the second ANPRM, during which the Access
Board heard critical feedback from the disability community and several
exhortations to finish the rulemaking in a timely manner; and
WHEREAS, the current Section 508 standards are out of date,
exacerbating a systemic pattern of noncompliance among federal agencies
that already have conflicting priorities, limited resources, and no
accountability mechanisms to meet their obligations under this law; and
WHEREAS, the disability community, technology industry, and federal
government are generally united on the need for the Section 508 standards
to be updated, and many of these stakeholders, particularly the National
Federation of the Blind, had a favorable reaction to the proposed changes
made in the 2011 ANPRM: Now, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization strongly urge the Access Board to continue working
diligently to refresh the Section 508 standards and finish this rulemaking
swiftly so that the technical standards and accessibility guidelines under
the law reflect changes in technology; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge Section 508 coordinators at each
federal agency to move quickly to adopt best practices for complying with
the new standards in order to protect blind people's right of access under
the law.
----------
Resolution 2012-13
Regarding Braille Codes
WHEREAS, Braille has been the primary means of literacy for blind
people since its invention in the 1800s; and
WHEREAS, the potential for the integration of Braille into education
and everyday life is now greater than ever because of the proliferation of
computers and mobile devices that can generate Braille; and
WHEREAS, the ability of a Braille user to write in Braille for
instant communication and collaboration with non-Braille readers is
becoming ever more essential in our digital age; and
WHEREAS, although the accurate, automated conversion of print to
Braille (forward translation) and from Braille to print (back translation)
is possible, inconsistencies within the current Braille codes, as well as
changing print conventions not effectively addressed in the current
literary Braille code, serve as significant roadblocks to translation; and
WHEREAS, these underlying difficulties may be exacerbated by
continuing efforts to tweak the current system; and
WHEREAS, the adoption of a more systematic symbol set providing for
greater flexibility and fewer exceptions to rules would increase the
accuracy of forward- and back-translation and would also enable Braille
transcribers to focus attention on issues of formatting and representing
graphics or other essential visual elements; and
WHEREAS, since 1992 the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) and
later the International Council on English Braille have been engaged in the
development of a single system called Unified English Braille (UEB) to
reduce conflicts and ambiguities by unifying some of the current multiple
Braille codes; and
WHEREAS, UEB has been developed with input from many people with the
intention of achieving an optimal balance among many factors, including
keeping our current general-purpose literary code as its basis, enabling
Braille to convey the same information as print, allowing for the addition
of new symbols not currently available in literary Braille, providing
flexibility to change as print changes, reducing the complexity of rules,
and allowing greater accuracy in back-translation; and
WHEREAS, the use of some dedicated Braille codes for specific
subjects, which permit the flexibility to represent those subjects fully,
continues to be necessary and desirable; and
WHEREAS, the current version of the Nemeth Braille Code for
Mathematics and Science Notation, implemented in the United States forty
years ago, has been widely recognized as an ingenious, powerful, and
efficient system for representing mathematics and scientific notation in
Braille; and
WHEREAS, the wholesale adoption of UEB would bring about relatively
few changes from current methods of representing literary materials but
would cause radical changes to Braille for technical materials; and
WHEREAS, a solution involving the adoption of UEB along with
continued use of the current Nemeth Braille Code, while not fully unifying
all codes, would improve the utility of Braille in the digital age and
increase flexibility for both technical and non-technical uses: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization call upon the Braille Authority of North America to adopt
the symbols and rules of Unified English Braille as the standard for
general-purpose, non-technical materials; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization express its strong
support for the continued use of the current Nemeth Braille Code as the
standard code for the teaching and production of materials that are
primarily mathematical in nature; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon BANA to work
with all stakeholders to develop a gradual implementation plan that brings
about a minimum of disruption to the education of blind children, takes
into account the needs of Braille users of all ages and in all walks of
life, and provides clear guidance to educators and Braille producers about
when to use which code.
----------
Resolution 2012-14
Regarding the Inaccessibility of the Kindle Fire
WHEREAS, on September 28, 2011, Amazon.com released the Kindle Fire,
a touchscreen tablet designed to read electronic books, access
applications, and perform other functions; and
WHEREAS, the Kindle Fire is the sixth inaccessible model of the
Amazon.com Kindle; and
WHEREAS, an accessible touchscreen tablet is completely achievable,
as demonstrated by Apple with the inclusion of VoiceOver, its text-to-
speech function included in the company's iOS operating system on all
models of the iPad; and
WHEREAS, Amazon.com itself demonstrated that the Kindle could be made
accessible when very basic text-to-speech functions were added to the
Kindle 2 and 3, but a blind user had no way to access the text-to-speech
feature independently; and
WHEREAS, when the Authors Guild and the Association of American
Publishers objected to inclusion of text-to-speech on the Kindle 2,
Amazon.com specifically sought out and requested the help of the NFB to
advocate for text-to-speech, promising continued accessibility improvements
in the Kindle product line but then allowed authors and publishers to block
text-to-speech on their books and did not follow through with the promised
accessibility improvements; and
WHEREAS, Amazon.com has repeatedly assured the National Federation of
the Blind during the development of three different models of the Kindle
that the upcoming model would be accessible by the blind and then released
an inaccessible model, illustrating a lack of respect for the elected
representatives of blind Americans, an inconsistency in Amazon.com's
policies, and general lack of reliability, if not outright
disingenuousness; and
WHEREAS, Amazon.com's failure to include accessibility features in
the Kindle Fire and its previous choice to curtail the text-to-speech
functions on the Kindle 2 and 3 were clearly, not a lack of innovation, but
strategic and calculated decisions that flew in the face of fair and equal
access for all; and
WHEREAS, blind people deserve access to the same books at the same
time and at the same price as sighted users, the ability to read and
navigate these books, and the other features available on the Kindle Fire:
Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization condemn and deplore Amazon.com's repeated discrimination
against the blind because it knowingly and purposely developed and launched
models of the Kindle that are completely inaccessible despite its awareness
of accessibility solutions and its repeatedly stated interest in meeting
the needs of blind consumers.
----------
Resolution 2012-15
Regarding Cartoons in NLS Publications
WHEREAS, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
Handicapped of the Library of Congress (NLS) is a major source of reading
materials for the blind of America such as books and magazines; and
WHEREAS, magazines are a very important way for all Americans to keep
up to date with current events, politics, public opinion, and ideas about
the modern world; and
WHEREAS, cartoons are included in print magazines and books, not
merely to provide humor, entertainment, and satire, but also to provide
pointed opinions on the vital issues of the day to the print-reading
public; and
WHEREAS, NLS offers its readers such important opinion-building
publications as The Week, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, National
Review, and Rolling Stone in recorded or Braille formats; and
WHEREAS, books and magazines produced by or under the direction of
NLS omit citations to or descriptions of cartoons, depriving the blind of
valuable information; and
WHEREAS, National Braille Press successfully describes cartoons and
illustrations in its Braille publications, demonstrating that such
information can be provided to blind readers; and
WHEREAS, the American Printing House for the Blind, which produces
the recorded editions of Newsweek and Reader's Digest, routinely includes
audio description of the cartoons in these publications, demonstrating not
only that such content adds value, but that these audio descriptions can be
included without affecting the timeliness of distribution: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization call upon the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress immediately to modify its
standards for Braille and audio production of books and magazines to
include portrayals or explanations of all cartoons, caricatures, and
drawings included in these publications, including reading all captions,
unless they are part of advertisements.
----------
Resolution 2012-16
Regarding Accessibility of Pearson Products
WHEREAS, Pearson is the largest publishing company in the world of
textbooks and courseware designed for use in institutions of higher
education; and
WHEREAS, MyLab and Mastering are Pearson programs offering customized
online solutions for learning, studying, and evaluation in multiple
subjects, and the overwhelming majority of the subject courseware programs
are inaccessible to blind students; and
WHEREAS, despite the inaccessibility of Pearson's courseware, the
MyLab and Mastering programs are being implemented in many institutions of
higher education and in lab-based, hybrid, fully online/distance-learning,
and traditional educational environments across the country; and
WHEREAS, MyMathLab is the only product with which Pearson has made
any progress on improving accessibility, yet the MyLab products for
science, engineering, computer science, humanities, social sciences, world
languages, careers, health sciences, nursing, economics, information
technology, and business disciplines all remain inaccessible to blind
students; and
WHEREAS, Pearson falsely claims to have incorporated accessibility
features into all textbooks and courseware, and the company refuses to make
public its accessibility statement, providing no way of learning about the
supposed accessibility of its products; and
WHEREAS, having access to instructional materials such as textbooks
and courseware is a civil right of blind students, and a company as large
as Pearson has not only the resources but the obligation to make its
products usable to the blind so that the company can truly claim that its
products provide solutions for all students: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization condemn Pearson and deplore its discrimination against
blind students and its lack of transparency in refusing to release its
accessibility statement and to educate the public on the purported
accessibility features of its products.
----------
Resolution 2012-17
Regarding Tablets Used in Urgent Care Medical Facilities
WHEREAS, once considered an "emerging technology," tablet computers
are becoming more popular with both private users and businesses; and
WHEREAS, the tablet market is expanding rapidly, with T-Mobile, Sony,
Toshiba, Motorola, Dell, and other manufacturers developing or releasing
tablets to compete with the Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle Fire, and Samsung
Galaxy, among other popular devices; and
WHEREAS, CareFirst, Patient First, and other urgent care medical
facilities are implementing a touchscreen-based patient check-in system to
replace the traditional receptionist/pen-and-paper check-in system,
requiring patients to input their personal information and medical history
using a tablet; and
WHEREAS, while the traditional system was inaccessible to blind
patients, requiring them to share their personal information and medical
history with a sighted person who came with them or with a virtual
stranger, the use of tablets provides an opportunity for blind people to
check into urgent care and other medical facilities independently and
privately if the tablets have proper accessibility features; and
WHEREAS, a fully accessible tablet, the Apple iPad, is available,
and, if businesses procuring and deploying tablet technology make
accessibility for the blind a priority, their investment will provide an
incentive for other tablet manufacturers to make their products accessible:
Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization urge CareFirst, Patient First, and other medical
facilities to procure and deploy only accessible tablets, taking advantage
of the opportunity to provide their blind patients with a private,
independent method of checking in like that afforded other patients, and to
provide an incentive for tablet manufacturers to make their products
accessible or develop innovative new ways to meet the needs of blind users.
----------
Resolution 2012-18
Regarding Inaccessible Adobe Products
WHEREAS, the Adobe suite of products includes Flash, a product for
watching videos, animation, and rich Internet content; InDesign, a package
for digital publishing; Dreamweaver, a product for creating websites; and
Contribute, Premier, Photoshop, Acrobat, and other products used for
creating, editing, accessing, and publishing content; and
WHEREAS, the interfaces of most products in the Adobe suite are
inaccessible to blind users, and some products have actually lost basic
accessibility that had once been built into the interface; and
WHEREAS, the products used for content creation such as Flash,
Dreamweaver, Acrobat, and InDesign have rich accessibility features, not in
their interfaces, but for application to the content being created, such as
good alt-tag support, good style sheets, and navigational style support;
but Adobe does not advertise or provide training for those features and has
no accessibility checkers to make it easy for content creators to make sure
the content they have created is accessible; and
WHEREAS, the Adobe Flash plugin is widely used by blind computer
users for consuming video, audio, and other rich content, despite an
inaccessible installer for the plugin, which Adobe has left inaccessible
for more than two years; and
WHEREAS, despite an outcry by blind Americans and repeated efforts by
the National Federation of the Blind to educate Adobe about the importance
of accessibility, the company continues to ignore the needs of blind users;
and
WHEREAS, as the popularity of Adobe products grows, the amount of
unnecessarily inaccessible content being created grows as well: Now,
therefore
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization condemn and deplore Adobe's complete and utter lack of
commitment to accessibility.
----------
Resolution 2012-19
Regarding Autonomous Vehicles
WHEREAS, the Blind Driver Challenge of the National Federation of the
Blind is an innovative research project of the NFB Jernigan Institute to
create nonvisual interfaces that will allow a blind person to drive a car
safely and independently; and
WHEREAS, driving does not and will never define a blind person's
independence, but the ability to operate an automobile independently and
safely will provide a greater degree of independent travel, affording us
opportunities that do not currently exist; and
WHEREAS, mainstream automobile manufacturers are working to develop
driverless vehicles, and many of them have already integrated autonomous
components like automatic parallel parking, adaptive cruise control, etc.;
and
WHEREAS, all autonomous vehicles currently require human operation,
and regardless of the degree to which vehicles become automated, some
degree of human intervention will always be required; and
WHEREAS, the convergence of nonvisual interface technology with
autonomous vehicle technology promises to result in a vehicle that a blind
person can operate safely and independently; and
WHEREAS, in order for the development of autonomous vehicle
technology to progress, autonomous vehicle developers must be allowed to
test drive the vehicles legally in a variety of real-world driving
situations; and
WHEREAS, the states of Nevada and Florida have already enacted
legislation making it legal for driverless vehicles to operate on their
roads: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization commend those states that are forward-thinking enough to
enact legislation that legalizes the operation of autonomous vehicles on
their roads, and that we call upon other states to enact similar
legislation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that autonomous
vehicle manufacturers include nonvisual interfaces that will allow a blind
person to operate the vehicle independently; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon automobile manufacturers to
work with the National Federation of the Blind to develop nonvisual driver
interfaces further.
----------
Resolution 2012-20
Regarding the Barnes & Noble Nook
WHEREAS, educational institutions and public libraries are deploying
digital readers to students and patrons as technology transforms the way
people access books and other content; and
WHEREAS, one of the most popular e-readers being deployed by these
entities is the Barnes & Noble Nook, which along with its online digital
bookstore is inaccessible to the blind; and
WHEREAS, technology exists that would make the Nook accessible, as
demonstrated by Apple's implementation of VoiceOver, the text-to-speech
function included in the company's iOS operating system on all models of
the iPad; and
WHEREAS, when educational institutions deploy inaccessible technology
such as the Nook, they directly violate the federal rights of blind
students under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; and
WHEREAS, blind patrons of public libraries should not be consigned to
separate and unequal access to books when libraries have the option to
deploy an accessible e-reader, providing blind and other print-disabled
patrons with equal, free, and easy access to all of the books available to
other patrons; and
WHEREAS, libraries and educational institutions have no excuse for
such violations, since they have been duly advised of their obligations in
a frequently asked questions document issued on May 26, 2011, by the U.S.
Department of Education, which provides specific guidelines regarding the
evaluation, procurement, and deployment of emerging educational
technologies to ensure that they are accessible to the blind and other
students with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, mainstream access to books for blind readers will occur only
when it is demanded by educational institutions and libraries, since the
purchasing power of those entities will provide incentive for Barnes &
Noble to make the Nook accessible; and
WHEREAS, Barnes & Noble has expressed an intent to make the Nook
accessible to blind users and is currently working on the accessibility of
the next model: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization urge Barnes & Noble to continue to work assiduously in
providing a product line that is accessible to blind users, including an
accessible online bookstore; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge institutions of
higher education and libraries not to purchase Barnes & Noble digital
products, including the Nook, until these digital products provide access
for students and patrons who are blind or have print disabilities.
----------
Resolution 2012-21
Resolution Regarding Fairness in Premiums
and Penalties in the Medicare Program
WHEREAS, recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance qualify
for Medicare coverage after two years as a recipient of benefits; and
WHEREAS, a recipient has the option to sign up for specific coverage
offered by the Medicare program when he or she is determined eligible, with
premiums deducted for the coverage chosen; and
WHEREAS, Medicare coverage is divided into four parts, each
identified by letter; and
WHEREAS, Part B of the Medicare program covers office visits,
outpatient procedures, and laboratory tests; and
WHEREAS, a recipient wishing coverage under Part B who has previously
opted out is assessed a monthly penalty in addition to the premium for this
service, unless the recipient can show coverage by an employer-based group
health plan for the time in which he or she was eligible for Part B
coverage; and
WHEREAS, the requirement to show coverage by an employer-based group
health plan means that a recipient is penalized for periods in which he or
she may have been covered by insurance comparable to Part B coverage
directly paid for by the recipient or someone other than an employer; and
WHEREAS, the penalty that can be charged to a recipient is not capped
and can result in hundreds of dollars per month in penalties: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization call upon Congress to amend the Social Security Act by
removing the requirement to show proof of coverage by an employer-based
group health plan and replacing it with a requirement to show insurance
comparable to Medicare Part B coverage; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon Congress to amend the Act
further by placing a cap on the penalty for failure to participate in the
Part B program so the total amount paid does not exceed double the original
monthly premium.
----------
Resolution 2012-22
Regarding Implementation of Recommendations
from the Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials
in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities
WHEREAS, access to quality educational opportunities is essential for
success in a society that values knowledge; and
WHEREAS, institutions of higher education are implementing a wide
array of technologies to facilitate instruction, deliver educational
content, encourage collaboration among students, provide access to
libraries and other data sources, manage student records, and provide other
services to students and faculty; and
WHEREAS, blind students in higher education increasingly encounter
technologies that cannot be effectively used with screen readers and
Braille displays, resulting in a significantly inferior educational
experience; and
WHEREAS, these technologies cannot be effectively used by blind
faculty members, thus diminishing their access to the tools required to
perform their teaching and research responsibilities and limiting their
chances for tenure and advancement; and
WHEREAS, the United States Congress recognized the urgency of
addressing and seeking remedies for the challenges encountered by students
and faculty with disabilities by authorizing the establishment of the
Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials in Postsecondary Education
for Students with Disabilities (the AIM Commission) under the Higher
Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA); and
WHEREAS, the Department of Education established the AIM Commission
in the fall of 2010, and the Commission released its report on December 6,
2011; and
WHEREAS, the report provides details of the challenges faced by
students with disabilities and clearly states that "barriers that would
deny students with disabilities their rights to full and complete access to
their educational experience are unacceptable in a society that values
achievement through education"; and
WHEREAS, the report, signed by all nineteen stakeholder
representatives of the Commission, provides specific recommendations for
action by Congress and federal agencies: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization call upon the members of the United States Congress to
act upon the report of the AIM Commission by immediately authorizing the
United States Access Board to establish guidelines for accessible
instructional materials that will be used by government, in the private
sector, and in postsecondary academic institutions; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge Congress to ask the secretary of
education to address the Department's plans to implement recommendations
made by the Commission and that a timeline be established for reviewing
progress; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we insist that the Department of
Education take steps to implement Commission recommendations, including
reestablishing an intra-agency working group on postsecondary students with
disabilities, creating a cross-agency working group to provide a more
unified and consistent approach to federal initiatives to provide
accessible instructional materials at postsecondary institutions, and
establishing demonstration projects that promote sharing best practices to
provide such materials; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we demand that the Department of
Education move swiftly to address the concerns and recommendations of the
Commission in areas in which the general market is expected to fail in
delivering accessible instructional materials in the near future, including
hard-copy Braille; tactile graphics; and materials in science, technology,
engineering, and math.
----------
Resolution 2012-23
Regarding the Inaccessibility of Xbox 360
WHEREAS, the Xbox 360 is the second video game console developed by
and produced for Microsoft; and
WHEREAS, unlike its predecessor, which was exclusively a gaming
console, the Xbox 360 is used for streaming a variety of content to a
television, including trailers, shows, music, and movies; and hosting
Microsoft's Windows Media Center multimedia capabilities and gaming; and
WHEREAS, the Xbox 360 is Microsoft's main channel for reaching
individual consumers, meaning that blind users cannot use information that
Microsoft distributes over the console; and
WHEREAS, when other entities, such as cable service providers and
satellite companies, choose to partner with Microsoft to disseminate their
content over the Xbox 360 console, they are discriminating against their
blind customers, who will not be able to access that content; and
WHEREAS, the 2010 passage of the 21st Century Communications and
Video Accessibility Act demonstrates that Congress believes access to home
entertainment systems and television set-top boxes by the blind is a civil
right and that the nation's telecommunications must be accessible to people
with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, Apple has produced a similar, fully accessible streaming
console used for entertainment in the home, demonstrating that completely
accessible media control is achievable; and
WHEREAS, during every meeting between the National Federation of the
Blind and Microsoft, the inaccessibility of the Xbox 360 has been
addressed, but the company has taken no action to remedy this problem: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization condemn and deplore Microsoft's failure to update the
Xbox 360 console so that it is accessible to blind users.
----------
Resolution 2012-24
Regarding At-Home Medical Equipment
WHEREAS, medical equipment designed for use in the home is a cost-
effective means of self-diagnosis and allows caregivers and those with
chronic illness to manage medical conditions independently and in their own
homes; and
WHEREAS, infants considered at risk for heart problems or apnea are
often sent home from the hospital on monitors, equipment that is not
generally accessible nonvisually; and
WHEREAS, electronic thermometers, for example, have replaced
traditional mercury-based thermometers as effective, easy tools for
diagnosing a fever; and
WHEREAS, despite the availability of access technology that allows
electronic and digital at-home medical equipment to provide audio output to
users, infant apnea monitors, home dialysis equipment, electronic
thermometers, and many other forms of at-home medical equipment remain
largely or completely inaccessible to the blind; and
WHEREAS, the development of accessible glucose monitoring equipment
in 2008 demonstrates that at-home medical devices can indeed be made
accessible for blind users; and
WHEREAS, incidents, such as blind parents' having to arrange for
ongoing sighted assistance in order to take a child home from the hospital
when the child requires a monitor, illustrate the consequences of denying
the blind access to at-home medical equipment; and
WHEREAS, Section 510 of the Rehabilitation Act, amplified by Section
4203 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March of 2010,
requires that medical diagnostic equipment, such as a mobile health unit or
trailer, examination tables and chairs, mammography equipment, x-ray
machines, radiological equipment, and weight scales, be accessible and
usable by individuals with disabilities, demonstrating that Congress
believes that access to medical equipment is a civil right; and
WHEREAS, when the Architectural and Transportation Barriers
Compliance Board, also known as the U.S. Access Board, began a rulemaking
to establish standards for the medical diagnostic equipment covered under
the new Section 510 of the Rehabilitation Act, the advanced notice of
proposed rulemaking specifically stated that "the statute does not cover
medical devices used for monitoring or treating medical conditions such as
glucometers and infusion pumps": Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization demand that manufacturers of at-home medical equipment
make their products accessible to blind users so that the civil right of
access to this equipment is preserved.
----------
Resolution 2012-25
Regarding Accommodations for
the Law School Admission Test
WHEREAS, before acceptance of a candidate, virtually every law school
in the United States requires applicants to take the Law School Admission
Test (LSAT), which is administered by the Law School Admissions Council
(LSAC); and
WHEREAS, LSAC has a long history of denying accommodations to
applicants with disabilities, such as denying blind applicants permission
to use their primary reading method, including screen-reading software,
Braille, and/or a human reader of the applicant's choice; and
WHEREAS, Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other
laws require that LSAC grant accommodations to applicants with
disabilities; and
WHEREAS, LSAC almost always makes it exceedingly difficult to obtain
necessary accommodations for the examination, and, even if a candidate is
able to comply with all of the LSAC's often unreasonable requests, the
accommodation is frequently ultimately denied; and
WHEREAS, the process of requesting and obtaining accommodations often
forces applicants with disabilities to do battle with LSAC until the
eleventh hour before the administration of the LSAT to discover whether the
accommodation has been granted, to hire lawyers and/or to pay doctors and
experts thousands of dollars to document the disability repeatedly, and
otherwise to waste time and money to receive accommodations, even in cases
where the requested accommodations had been routinely granted when the
applicant acquired his or her undergraduate degree; and
WHEREAS, LSAC also engages in the practice of "flagging" test scores
for any examination that is administered to an applicant using any
accommodation; and
WHEREAS, LSAC sends a letter to each law school to which the
applicant with a disability has applied, stating that he or she took the
examination under "nonstandard conditions" and that there is no way to
assess whether the score obtained by the applicant means anything; and
WHEREAS, this flagging practice is LSAC's way of saying that
accommodations and disability skew the results of the examination and that
scores obtained by applicants with disabilities are therefore meaningless
and should be ignored; and
WHEREAS, the American Bar Association (ABA) is the largest voluntary
professional organization in the world, with over 400,000 lawyer members;
and
WHEREAS, the ABA is regarded as the leading voice in the nation
calling for change in the legal system; and
WHEREAS, the ABA House of Delegates is the ABA's supreme authority
and the body which sets policy for the organization; and
WHEREAS, at the 2012 ABA Midyear meeting held in New Orleans,
Louisiana, the House of Delegates passed ABA Resolution 2012-111, which
calls upon the LSAC to stop its practice of denying accommodations and
making it exceedingly difficult to obtain those accommodations for the
LSAT, and further calls upon LSAC to cease its discriminatory practice of
flagging test scores: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization applaud and commend the American Bar Association for
sending a strong and clear message to the Law School Admissions Council
that it must stop its discrimination against test applicants with
disabilities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we join the ABA in demanding that LSAC
grant accommodations for the LSAT quickly and efficiently to all blind
applicants and other applicants with disabilities and that LSAC cease
immediately the discriminatory practice of flagging LSAT scores.
----------
Resolution 2012-26
Regarding Entrepreneurial Opportunities
for People with Disabilities
WHEREAS, the United States Congress has enacted provisions to provide
entrepreneurial opportunities for businesses owned by groups that are
considered to be socially and economically disadvantaged; and
WHEREAS, these provisions do not include businesses owned by
individuals with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, Congress enacted the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act to increase job
opportunities for people with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, many disabled workers never advance to management positions
in Javits-Wagner-O'Day-affiliated businesses because the nondisabled
employers have low expectations for their disabled workers; and
WHEREAS, Congress has not reauthorized the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act
since programs were created under the Small Business Act to provide
entrepreneurial opportunities for other socially and economically
disadvantaged groups; and
WHEREAS, the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act should include provisions for
people with disabilities to take part in all aspects of business, including
owning a business and executing contracts awarded under the Javits-Wagner-
O'Day Act: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this fourth day of July, 2012, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that
this organization urge the United States Congress to amend the Javits-
Wagner-O'Day Act to include provisions to increase entrepreneurial
opportunities for individuals with disabilities.
----------
Convention Miniatures
Division Elections:
Here are the results that we have received from division elections at
this year's division meetings at convention:
Travel and Tourism
Travel and Tourism officers for 2012 to 2014 are president, Cheryl
Echevarria (NY); vice president, Maurice Shackelford (GA); secretary, Margo
Downey (NY); treasurer, Milton Taylor (TX); and board members, Daniel Carr
(TX), Amy Baron (MN), and Jemal Powell (IL).
Diabetes Action Network
<http://www.nfb.org/diabetes>
The results of the DAN election were as follows: president, Michael
Freeman (WA); first vice president, Bernadette Jacobs (MD); second vice
president, Minnie Walker (AL); secretary, Diane Filipe (CO); and treasurer,
Joy Stigile (CA); and board members, Maria Bradford (WA), Wanda Sloan (OH),
Mindy Jacobsen (NY), and Jean Brown (IN).
Amateur Radio Division
The Ham Radio Division elected president, Curtis Willoughby (CO);
vice president, Michael Freeman (WA); secretary, Doris Willoughby (CO); and
treasurer, John Fritz (WI).
Assistive Technology Trainers Division
Following are the elected officers and board members of the Assistive
Technology Trainers Division of the National Federation of the Blind:
president, Michael Barber (IA); vice president, Joe Steinkamp (TX);
secretary, Jan Brandt (NE); treasurer, Jeanine Lineback (TX); and board
members, Nancy Coffman (NE), Richard Ring (IA), and Wes Majerus (NE).
Seniors Division
The Seniors elected the following officers: president, Ruth Sager
(MD); vice president, Art Schreiber (NM); second vice president, Judy
Sanders (MN); secretary, Ramona Walhof (ID); treasurer, Diane McGeorge
(CO); and board members, Margo Downey (NY) and Don Gilmore (IL).
Krafters Division
<www.krafterskorner.org>
The Krafters elected president, Joyce Kane (CT); vice president,
Cindy Sheets (IN); second vice president, Laurie Porter (WI); secretary,
Ramona Walhof (ID); treasurer, Cindy Zimmer (NE); and board members, Linda
Anderson (CO) and Diane Filipe (CO).
National Association of Blind Office Professionals
The following officers were elected by the office professionals
division: president, Lisa Hall (OH); vice president, Mary Donahue (TX);
secretary, Kevin Ledford (UT); and treasurer, Debbie Brown (MD).
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
<www.nfb.org/nopbc>
At the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC)
annual meeting in Dallas, Texas, on July 2, 2012, the following were
elected to the executive board: president, Carlton Anne Cook Walker (PA);
first vice president, Andrea Beasley (WI); second vice president, Kim
Cunningham (TX); secretary, Pamela Gebert (AK); treasurer, Pat Renfranz
(UT); and board members, Jim Beyer (MT), Jean Bening (MN), Laura Bostick
(LA), Wingfield Bouchard (MS), Amber Hall (IN), David Hammel (IA),
Stephanie Kieszak-Holloway (GA), Zina Lewis (VA), Holly Miller (NJ), and
Trudy Pickrel (MD). Barbara Cheadle (MD) remains on the Board as President
Emerita, and Carol Castellano (NJ) continues to serve the NOPBC as its
director of programs.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: An instructor and a student work on the art of self
defense.]
The Sports and Recreation Division Report:
Division President Lisamaria Martinez reports that the Sports and
Recreation Division hosted several fun-filled activities at this year's
convention. From newly created disc golf to self-defense workshops,
Federationists spent several days dabbling in physical activities while
juggling meetings and the exhibit hall. The business meeting was chock-full
of great speakers like students from the Louisiana Center for the Blind,
who explained the ways sports has given them the confidence they need to be
successful blind people living lives to their fullest and speakers who
shared their knowledge about the accessibility of sport accessories and
apps. We can't wait until Orlando to share another successful convention
with you.
----------
Report on the Convention Youth Track:
This year's Youth Track kicked off late Saturday morning with a
challenging problem-solving activity that has come to be known as Balloon
Build or Bust. Students are given a roll of tape and fifty balloons; they
are to take these materials and build a free-standing structure within a
set amount of time. Each team's hope is that its structure will end up
being the tallest. Although the lunch break occurred immediately following
the kick-off activity, the enthusiasm was just as strong during the
afternoon session.
Following lunch, both age groups (eleven to fourteen and fifteen to
eighteen) took part in various activities that allowed them to learn about
Federation philosophy in an interactive format. The younger students showed
off their talents by creating art that illustrated what they wanted the
world to know about blindness. The fifteen-to-eighteen crowd had the
opportunity to check out Federationbook, the NFB's social network. They
learned about leaders like Dr. Maurer and Mark Riccobono by checking out
their Federationbook profiles. In addition they wrote a Federationbook
profile of their own. Both age groups got to make short movies telling the
world what they wanted people to know about blindness. Both groups also
learned more about the hotel and talked to other convention attendees as
they searched for answers to Federation Trivia questions.
Saturday was our busiest day, but it most certainly wasn't the end of
the Youth Track Activities. Sunday afternoon students honed their writing
skills by taking part in what has become an annual writers workshop hosted
by the NFB's Writers' Division. Monday, following the board meeting,
students attended our traditional Division Meet and Greet, where they heard
short presentations from representatives of many of our NFB divisions.
Monday evening, thanks to the Sports and Rec Division, we were able to
offer a one-hour self-defense workshop. Self-defense wasn't the only
physical activity going on Monday night. Deja Powell, who is best known as
a cane travel teacher, put on her dance-instructor hat to teach the kids
some basic dance moves. Tuesday night we loaded up a bus and headed out for
pizza. We had no agenda for this experience other than giving the students
an opportunity to socialize with one another. Of course there were still
plenty of stimulating discussions and opportunities for learning.
Youth Track activities culminated in our parallel general sessions,
which took place on Wednesday and Thursday. These sessions give the
students an opportunity to learn about things that happen in general
session in a more student-friendly way. This year's topics included
convention highlights, the Federation and education, and entrepreneurship.
----------
NFB Krafters Division Convention Activity:
Nancy Yeager has provided the following report of NFB Krafter
activities at convention:
The Krafters Division, ably led by President Joyce Kane, began
activities on Saturday, June 30, with its fourth annual craft show. As
visitors entered the Anatole Hilton's Topaz Room, President Kane greeted
them with handmade roses of chocolate and peanut butter. Guests then
explored the displays stationed around the room, all containing handcrafted
treasures made by blind Federationists. Many of the items on display were
similar to those visitors would find at any other craft show. The
difference was that guests knew they were welcome to touch all of the items
on exhibit.
Offerings included a variety of handmade jewelry made by several
crafters, each demonstrating the crafter's unique style. Another vender's
medium was plastic canvas woven with yarn, resulting in unique patterns and
designs, many of them tactile. Products included small cases, bookmarks,
and holiday ornaments. Another exhibiter offered greeting cards with
singing dogs. The voice on the card was the vender's family pet. Still
another crafter offered painted figurines, fans, and small cases, some with
tactile designs.
A frequent division instructor exhibited safety-pin-beaded items
including baskets, candleholders, a Christmas sleigh, and a gingerbread
house. In August the Krafters Division will hold safety-pin-beading classes
in the construction of these Christmas items. The show's final vender
worked in leather. His hand-tooled and hand-stamped items included phone
cases and other items, many with tactile designs.
In addition to the venders who were selling their crafts, a weaver
demonstrated the Maystayer weaving machine to visitors. Finally, would-be
crafters had the opportunity to stop by the make-and-take table where, with
paper, a little glue, and help from a volunteer crafter, they learned how
to make a gift bag similar to those available in stores for use instead of
wrapping paper. Many convention attendees stopped by the division table in
the exhibit hall and received Braille and print information about the
Krafters Division.
On July 1 we held our annual meeting. We elected officers for the
upcoming year listed elsewhere in the Miniatures. Other agenda items
included possible classes of interest in 2012-2013, charity project ideas,
and suggestions for next year's convention in Orlando. We conducted our
final division event on Tuesday evening, July 3, in which two division
members held a crafting activity with younger convention attendees while
their parents attended evening meetings.
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Affiliate Action Membership-Building Seminar and Materials Available:
For the last few years the Affiliate Action Department has presented a
Back-to-Basics membership-building seminar at national convention. This
year's action-packed agenda, entitled "Spotlight on Our Federation
Philosophy," contained presentations on how to teach our philosophy through
exciting activities that we can include in chapter meetings, such as
writing NFB songs, playing NFB Trivia, and writing and acting out skits
involving situations a blind person might encounter in everyday life.
You can find the audio of this seminar at <http://nfb.org/back-to-
basics>. Additionally, you can access the philosophy discussion topics that
were distributed to attendees, along with other useful membership-building
materials, at <http://www.nfb.org/membership-building>.
National Association of Blind Educators:
At the seminar of the National Organization of Blind Educators,
teachers from a variety of grade levels and subject areas gathered to
network and share ideas and strategies to become more effective teachers.
Large group presentations focused on acquiring alternative techniques and
working with inaccessible websites and programs. In discussions about the
joys and challenges of teaching in the classroom, panelists highlighted the
importance of building community and establishing relationships with
students as well as classroom management procedures.
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Constitution
of the
National Federation of the Blind
as Amended 1986
ARTICLE I. NAME
The name of this organization is the National Federation of the
Blind.
ARTICLE II. PURPOSE
The purpose of the National Federation of the Blind is to serve as a
vehicle for collective action by the blind of the nation; to function as a
mechanism through which the blind and interested sighted persons can come
together in local, state, and national meetings to plan and carry out
programs to improve the quality of life for the blind; to provide a means
of collective action for parents of blind children; to promote the
vocational, cultural, and social advancement of the blind; to achieve the
integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality with the
sighted; and to take any other action which will improve the overall
condition and standard of living of the blind.
ARTICLE III. MEMBERSHIP
Section A. The membership of the National Federation of the Blind
shall consist of the members of the state affiliates, the members of
divisions, and members at large. Members of divisions and members at large
shall have the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities in the
National Federation of the Blind as members of state affiliates.
The board of directors shall establish procedures for admission of
divisions and shall determine the structure of divisions. The divisions
shall, with the approval of the board, adopt constitutions and determine
their membership policies. Membership in divisions shall not be conditioned
upon membership in state affiliates.
The board of directors shall establish procedures for admission of
members at large, determine how many classes of such members shall be
established, and determine the annual dues to be paid by members of each
class.
Section B. Each state or territorial possession of the United States,
including the District of Columbia, having an affiliate shall have one vote
at the National Convention. These organizations shall be referred to as
state affiliates.
Section C. State affiliates shall be organizations of the blind
controlled by the blind. No organization shall be recognized as an
"organization of the blind controlled by the blind" unless at least a
majority of its voting members and a majority of the voting members of each
of its local chapters are blind.
Section D. The board of directors shall establish procedures for the
admission of state affiliates. There shall be only one state affiliate in
each state.
Section E. Any member, local chapter, state affiliate, or division of
this organization may be suspended, expelled, or otherwise disciplined for
misconduct or for activity unbecoming to a member or affiliate of this
organization by a two-thirds vote of the board of directors or by a simple
majority of the states present and voting at a National Convention. If the
action is to be taken by the board, there must be good cause, and a good
faith effort must have been made to try to resolve the problem by
discussion and negotiation. If the action is to be taken by the Convention,
notice must be given on the preceding day at an open board meeting or a
session of the Convention. If a dispute arises as to whether there was
"good cause," or whether the board made a "good faith effort," the National
Convention (acting in its capacity as the supreme authority of the
Federation) shall have the power to make final disposition of the matter;
but until or unless the board's action is reversed by the National
Convention, the ruling of the board shall continue in effect.
ARTICLE IV. OFFICERS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS,
AND NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
Section A. The officers of the National Federation of the Blind shall
be: (1) president, (2) first vice president, (3) second vice president, (4)
secretary, and (5) treasurer. They shall be elected biennially.
Section B. The officers shall be elected by majority vote of the
state affiliates present and voting at a National Convention.
Section C. The National Federation of the Blind shall have a board of
directors, which shall be composed of the five officers and twelve
additional members, six of whom shall be elected at the Annual Convention
during even-numbered years and six of whom shall be elected at the Annual
Convention during odd-numbered years. The members of the board of directors
shall serve for two-year terms.
Section D. The board of directors may, in its discretion, create a
national advisory board and determine the duties and qualifications of the
members of the national advisory board.
ARTICLE V. POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE CONVENTION,
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AND THE PRESIDENT
Section A. Powers and Duties of the Convention. The Convention is the
supreme authority of the Federation. It is the legislature of the
Federation. As such, it has final authority with respect to all issues of
policy. Its decisions shall be made after opportunity has been afforded for
full and fair discussion. Delegates and members in attendance may
participate in all Convention discussions as a matter of right. Any member
of the Federation may make or second motions, propose nominations, serve on
committees, and is eligible for election to office, except that only blind
members may be elected to the national board. Voting and making motions by
proxy are prohibited. Consistent with the democratic character of the
Federation, Convention meetings shall be so conducted as to prevent
parliamentary maneuvers which would have the effect of interfering with the
expression of the will of the majority on any question, or with the rights
of the minority to full and fair presentation of their views. The
Convention is not merely a gathering of representatives of separate state
organizations. It is a meeting of the Federation at the national level in
its character as a national organization. Committees of the Federation are
committees of the national organization. The nominating committee shall
consist of one member from each state affiliate represented at the
Convention, and each state affiliate shall appoint its member to the
committee. From among the members of the committee, the president shall
appoint a chairperson.
Section B. Powers and Duties of the Board of Directors. The function
of the board of directors as the governing body of the Federation between
Conventions is to make policies when necessary and not in conflict with the
policies adopted by the Convention. Policy decisions which can reasonably
be postponed until the next meeting of the National Convention shall not be
made by the board of directors. The board of directors shall serve as a
credentials committee. It shall have the power to deal with organizational
problems presented to it by any member, local chapter, state affiliate, or
division; shall decide appeals regarding the validity of elections in local
chapters, state affiliates, or divisions; and shall certify the credentials
of delegates when questions regarding the validity of such credentials
arise. By a two-thirds vote the board may suspend one of its members for
violation of a policy of the organization or for other action unbecoming to
a member of the Federation. By a two-thirds vote the board may reorganize
any local chapter, state affiliate, or division. The board may not suspend
one of its own members or reorganize a local chapter, state affiliate, or
division except for good cause and after a good-faith effort has been made
to try to resolve the problem by discussion and negotiation. If a dispute
arises as to whether there was "good cause" or whether the board made a
"good-faith effort," the National Convention (acting in its capacity as the
supreme authority of the Federation) shall have the power to make final
disposition of the matter; but until or unless the board's action is
reversed by the National Convention, the ruling of the board shall continue
in effect. There shall be a standing subcommittee of the board of directors
which shall consist of three members. The committee shall be known as the
subcommittee on budget and finance. It shall, whenever it deems necessary,
recommend to the board of directors principles of budgeting, accounting
procedures, and methods of financing the Federation program; and shall
consult with the president on major expenditures.
The board of directors shall meet at the time of each National
Convention. It shall hold other meetings on the call of the president or on
the written request of any five members.
Section C. Powers and Duties of the President. The president is the
principal administrative officer of the Federation. In this capacity his or
her duties consist of carrying out the policies adopted by the Convention;
conducting the day-to-day management of the affairs of the Federation;
authorizing expenditures from the Federation treasury in accordance with
and in implementation of the policies established by the Convention;
appointing all committees of the Federation except the nominating
committee; coordinating all activities of the Federation, including the
work of other officers and of committees; hiring, supervising, and
dismissing staff members and other employees of the Federation, and
determining their numbers and compensation; taking all administrative
actions necessary and proper to put into effect the programs and accomplish
the purposes of the Federation. The implementation and administration of
the interim policies adopted by the board of directors are the
responsibility of the president as principal administrative officer of the
Federation.
ARTICLE VI. STATE AFFILIATES
Any organized group desiring to become a state affiliate of the
National Federation of the Blind shall apply for affiliation by submitting
to the president of the National Federation of the Blind a copy of its
constitution and a list of the names and addresses of its elected officers.
Under procedures to be established by the board of directors, action shall
be taken on the application. If the action is affirmative, the National
Federation of the Blind shall issue to the organization a charter of
affiliation. Upon request of the national president the state affiliate
shall provide to the national president the names and addresses of its
members. Copies of all amendments to the constitution and/or bylaws of an
affiliate shall be sent without delay to the national president. No
organization shall be accepted as an affiliate and no organization shall
remain an affiliate unless at least a majority of its voting members are
blind. The president, vice president (or vice presidents), and at least a
majority of the executive committee or board of directors of the state
affiliate and of all of its local chapters must be blind. Affiliates must
not merely be social organizations but must formulate programs and actively
work to promote the economic and social betterment of the blind. Affiliates
and their local chapters must comply with the provisions of the
constitution of the Federation.
Policy decisions of the Federation are binding upon all affiliates
and local chapters, and the affiliate and its local chapters must
participate affirmatively in carrying out such policy decisions. The name
National Federation of the Blind, Federation of the Blind, or any variant
thereof is the property of the National Federation of the Blind; and any
affiliate or local chapter of an affiliate which ceases to be part of the
National Federation of the Blind (for whatever reason) shall forthwith
forfeit the right to use the name National Federation of the Blind,
Federation of the Blind, or any variant thereof.
A general convention of the membership of an affiliate or of the
elected delegates of the membership must be held and its principal
executive officers must be elected at least once every two years. There can
be no closed membership. Proxy voting is prohibited in state affiliates and
local chapters. Each affiliate must have a written constitution or bylaws
setting forth its structure, the authority of its officers, and the basic
procedures which it will follow. No publicly contributed funds may be
divided among the membership of an affiliate or local chapter on the basis
of membership, and (upon request from the national office) an affiliate or
local chapter must present an accounting of all of its receipts and
expenditures. An affiliate or local chapter must not indulge in attacks
upon the officers, board members, leaders, or members of the Federation or
upon the organization itself outside of the organization, and must not
allow its officers or members to indulge in such attacks. This requirement
shall not be interpreted to interfere with the right of an affiliate or
local chapter, or its officers or members, to carry on a political campaign
inside the Federation for election to office or to achieve policy changes.
However, the organization will not sanction or permit deliberate, sustained
campaigns of internal organizational destruction by state affiliates, local
chapters, or members. No affiliate or local chapter may join or support, or
allow its officers or members to join or support, any temporary or
permanent organization inside the Federation which has not received the
sanction and approval of the Federation.
ARTICLE VII. DISSOLUTION
In the event of dissolution, all assets of the organization shall be
given to an organization with similar purposes which has received a
501(c)(3) certification by the Internal Revenue Service.
ARTICLE VIII. AMENDMENTS
This constitution may be amended at any regular Annual Convention of
the Federation by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the state affiliates
registered, present, and voting; provided that the proposed amendment shall
have been signed by five state affiliates in good standing and that it
shall have been presented to the president the day before final action by
the Convention.
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NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for
the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to
abide by its constitution.
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