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</style> </head> <body> <div id="header"> <h1 class="title">The Braille Monitor,
July 2026</h1> </div> <h1 id="braille-monitor">BRAILLE MONITOR</h1> <p>Vol. 69,
No. 7 July 2026</p> <p><em>Chris Danielsen, Editor</em></p> <p>Distributed by
email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive, by the</p> <p>NATIONAL
FEDERATION OF THE BLIND</p> <p>Mark Riccobono, President</p> <p>telephone:
410-659-9314</p> <p>email address: <a href="mailto:nfb@nfb.org">nfb@nfb.org</a></p>
<p>website address: <a href="http://www.nfb.org">http://www.nfb.org</a></p>
<p>NFBnet.org: <a href="http://www.nfbnet.org">http://www.nfbnet.org</a></p>
<p>NFB-NEWSLINE® information: 866-504-7300</p> <p>Like us on Facebook: <a
href="http://Facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind">Facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind</a></p>
<p>Follow us on X: @NFB_Voice</p> <p>Follow us on Mastodon: @nationsblind@nfb.social</p>
<p>Watch and share our videos: <a
href="http://YouTube.com/NationsBlind">YouTube.com/NationsBlind</a></p> <p>Letters
to the President, address changes, subscription requests, and orders for NFB
literature should be sent to the national office. Articles for the <em>Monitor</em>
and letters to the editor may also be sent to the national office or may be emailed
to <a href="mailto:cdanielsen@nfb.org">cdanielsen@nfb.org</a>.</p> <p><em>Monitor</em>
subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year. Members are invited,
and nonmembers are requested, to cover the subscription cost. Donations should be
made payable to <strong>National Federation of the Blind</strong> and sent to:</p>
<p>National Federation of the Blind</p> <p>200 East Wells Street <em>at Jernigan
Place</em><br /> Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998</p> <p><strong>THE NATIONAL
FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES
YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE
LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN
LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT; BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION
OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND—IT IS THE BLIND
SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES.</strong></p> <p><em>ISSN 0006-8829</em></p> <p>© 2026
by the National Federation of the Blind</p> <p>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 National Library Service digital player. The NLS
machine has two slots—the familiar book-cartridge slot just above the
retractable carrying handle and a second slot located on the right side near the
headphone jack. This smaller slot is used to play thumb drives. Remove the protective
rubber pad covering this slot and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in
one position. If you encounter resistance, flip the drive over and try again.
(Note: If the cartridge slot is not empty when you insert the thumb drive, the
digital player will ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is inserted,
the player buttons will function as usual for reading digital materials. If you
remove the thumb drive to use the player for cartridges, when you insert it again,
reading should resume at the point you stopped.</p> <p>You can transfer the
recording of each issue from the thumb drive to your computer or preserve it on
the thumb drive. However, because thumb drives can be used hundreds of times, we
would appreciate their return in order to stretch our funding. Please use the
return envelope enclosed with the drive when you return the device.</p> <p>Vol.
69, No. 7 July 2026</p> <h2 id="contents"> Contents</h2> <p>From the Editor</p>
<p>by Chris Danielsen</p> <p>From the Backseat to the Driver’s Seat: A
Federation Journey with Waymo</p> <p>by Jordan Moon</p> <p>Federation Sues Government
Agencies Over Delayed Web Accessibility Rules</p> <p>by Chris Danielsen</p>
<p>National Federation of the Blind Official Comments in Response to the Department
of Health and Human Services Interim Final Rule Regarding Section 504 Digital
Accessibility</p> <p>How I Came to the Federation</p> <p>by Amy Porterfield</p>
<p>Becoming Blind: Finding the Truth Beyond Vision<br /> by Ahmad Shafi</p>
<p>BELLs Should Be Ringing Everywhere</p> <p>by Eric Duffy</p> <p>Eye Condition
Twins: A Double-Edged Sword</p> <p>by Justin Salisbury</p> <p>Of Seniors and
Seeds</p> <p>by Sandy Halverson</p> <p>The Golden Rule, the Platinum Rule, and
the Right to Speak for Ourselves</p> <p>by Gary Wunder</p> <p>Trainers Committee
for Structured Discovery: A Name Change Reflecting Expanded Mission and Professional
Impact</p> <p>by Jimmy Morris</p> <p><em>Monitor</em> Miniatures</p> <p>[PHOTO
CAPTION: Chris Danielsen]</p> <h2 id="from-the-editor">From the Editor</h2> <p>by
Chris Danielsen</p> <p>It is likely that most people reading this are preparing
to attend the National Federation of the Blind 2026 National Convention in Austin,
Texas, or have just returned from it. The convention is the highlight of each year
in the National Federation of the Blind. It has been compared to a family reunion,
and attendees have a wonderful time, but its most important function is as the
supreme governing authority of our organization. That is because the convention
is where officers and directors are elected and where new policies are set for
our movement via the resolution process. Consequently, the convention will be
extensively covered in the next issue of this magazine. But if you are unable to
attend the convention in person and can’t or don’t wish to wait to
read about it in our August/September issue, you can still sign up for the virtual
convention experience if you have not done so already. The registration fee is
only $10, and it is easy to sign up by visiting <a
href="https://nfb.org/convention">https://nfb.org/convention</a>. Although you
will still receive many of the highlights of the convention in the <em>Braille
Monitor</em>, there’s nothing like being there, even virtually, and much
as we would like to, this publication cannot award door prizes, whereas you can
win them with a virtual convention experience registration.</p> <p>If you are
joining us in Austin, you may have the exciting opportunity to travel in an
autonomous vehicle. Austin is one of the many cities where Waymo operates an
automated rideshare service, available through its own app or through the Uber
app you may already have on your phone. Waymo’s service has been available
in Phoenix for a while now, and Jordan Moon, who lives there and works for Saavi
Services for the Blind, shares his experience and provides useful tips for trying
out the service. We made his article available on our Early Access blog, located
at <a href="https://nfb.org/braille-monitor">https://nfb.org/braille-monitor</a>,
where you can find other posts before they become available in our print, Braille,
and audio editions, as well as updates of previously published articles as warranted.
In this case we wanted to give readers plenty of time to prepare to take a Waymo
ride if they wished, but if you missed the post, the article is now in your hands.
And speaking of the Bolotin Award-winning training center Saavi Services for the
Blind where Jordan Moon works, its executive director, Amy Porterfield, tells us
in this issue about her journey to fully realize the meaning of the Federation in
her own life and its ability to enhance the training and lives of her students.</p>
<p>Many who will not attend the convention for whatever reason are still doing
the work of our movement, and the convention will not be the only Federation
activity that occurs this summer. Some affiliates have already held BELL®
Academy sessions and more will hold them in the weeks after the convention adjourns.
If you are not familiar with the BELL Academy, Eric Duffy’s contribution
to this issue explains this program well and makes a strong case for its importance
to blind children, their families, and our movement.</p> <p>Our advocacy work also
continues behind the scenes even as we set new policy priorities at our convention.
Regular readers already know that we are fighting for the implementation of rules
that will facilitate our equal online access to the activities of state and local
governments and to healthcare. This battle has entered a new phase: a lawsuit
against the federal Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services, which
have delayed and may seek to water down or eliminate these rules. We share details
of this new litigation in these pages.</p> <p>The National Federation of the Blind
has many divisions through which we support and address issues faced by blind and
deafblind people based on our various interests, vocations, avocations, and stages
of life. Most of these will hold their annual business meetings during the National
Convention, but their activities continue throughout the year. The Seniors Division
has always been a critical component of our movement because it serves the many
individuals who experience blindness or vision loss as they age, as well as
continuing to enhance the lives of existing members who are transitioning into
retirement and other changes that come with growing older. In this issue, Sandy
Halverson, a longtime leader in the Federation and chair of the Shares Unlimited
in NFB (SUN) Committee, describes an innovation from this division that arose
during the COVID-19 pandemic but now continues to be a learning and networking
opportunity enhancing the ability of blind and deafblind seniors to live the lives
they want.</p> <p>We are unable to carry a <em>Monitor</em> Miniatures column in
every issue, but we can carry it more often if we have more content. Since we are
able to carry the column in this issue, it seems like a good time to remind our
readers that you can submit Federation family news for inclusion in this space.
You can also submit information about items you have for sale that will be of
specific interest to our readers, such as gently used access technology. We also
accept short items about the activities of other agencies, organizations, or
individuals that may be of interest to readers. It is important to remember that,
when we publish such information, we are not necessarily endorsing the product or
service; we are merely sharing what we received in case our readers want to
investigate further.</p> <p>This issue is rounded out with some philosophical
musings. My predecessor and dear friend Gary Wunder writes about the kind of
understanding and acceptance that we as blind and deafblind people truly need from
the rest of our society. Justin Salisbury of Hawaii ponders the ways that we make
individual connections with each other in our movement and how the ways in which
we do this may change over time. He posits that society’s emphasis on the
medical causes of blindness may prompt us to first seek connection through shared
eye conditions and gives his thoughts on why that can be a useful but limited
strategy of forging bonds with other members. And Ahmad Shafi, president of the
National Federation of the Blind of West Virginia, whom I had the privilege of
meeting a couple of Washington Seminars back, shares his personal journey toward
his proud and unapologetic acceptance of his identity as a blind person.</p> <p>As
ever, your feedback about the content of this issue and your own contributions
are much sought and desired. If you do not see yourself writing an article, then
a short letter or even a phone call will suffice. Perhaps your observations will
be included in this note or in a correspondence column, or perhaps it will lead
to a conversation that ultimately results in a complete article. However you choose
to contribute, the flagship magazine of our movement cannot claim that distinction
without your unique and authentic voice. Please email me at <a
href="mailto:cdanielsen@nfb.org">cdanielsen@nfb.org</a> or call 410-659-9314,
extension 2330, to share that voice. I look forward to connecting with you!</p>
<p>----------</p> <p>[PHOTO CAPTION: Mentor Jordan Moon and a student get ready
to begin their STEM experiment.]</p> <h2
id="from-the-backseat-to-the-drivers-seat-a-federation-journey-with-waymo">From
the Backseat to the Driver’s Seat: A Federation Journey with Waymo</h2>
<p>by Jordan Moon</p> <p>We have all heard the jokes. “What are you,
blind?” “Even a Blind Person can See that!” “Blind
people driving? Absolutely not!” Even in casual conversation, blindness
and driving are treated as the ultimate contradiction—the joke that writes
itself. Growing up, I laughed along because I desperately wanted to fit in.</p>
<p>Like many blind people, I internalized the idea that not driving meant not
being fully independent. Drivers got licenses. We got IDs. Even compliments carried
low expectations: “Wow, you get around so well!” or “I honestly
don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t drive.”</p> <p>I
spent years trying to speed past those stereotypes. I played sports, sat inches
from televisions to play video games (some involving racecars), and commented on
clothes and appearances as though I could see them perfectly. But when my friends
started getting driver’s licenses, I hit the one barrier I could not fake
my way around.</p> <h3 id="pumping-the-brakes-on-the-road-of-expectations">Pumping
the Brakes on the Road of Expectations </h3> <p>Throughout my childhood and young
adulthood, the inability to drive seemed to shadow every major life decision. An
orientation and mobility instructor once told me a blind person could never teach
cane travel. How would I pick up my students and drive them around, let alone
monitor them? Watching friends, and eventually my younger brothers, get licenses
only reinforced the feeling that adulthood itself depended on driving.</p> <p>Even
at Arizona State University—Forks Up!—I quietly limited my own
ambitions. I convinced myself print journalism was my only option because I could
not drive to story locations or operate a camera. During job interviews, employers
would ask how I planned to get around without a car, and I began wondering whether
society’s low expectations were right after all. This self-doubt led to
severe depression.</p> <h3 id="the-federation-drives-the-change">The Federation
Drives the Change </h3> <p>It was not until I met the National Federation of the
Blind in 2014 that I realized the low expectations society had placed on me did
not have to be my own. Maybe there was a way I did not have to let my blindness
define me. But it still seemed almost too good to be true.</p> <p>One of the first
things that helped me embrace Federation philosophy was learning about the Blind
Driver Challenge. This initiative emphasized that lack of eyesight was not the
reason that blind people could not drive; the problem was that technology had
never been developed to give blind people the information, through our other
senses, to operate a motor vehicle safely and independently.</p> <p>In 2004,
then-Federation President Dr. Marc Maurer challenged university engineering teams
to design a vehicle a blind person could independently operate. Seven years later,
on January 29, 2011, Mark Riccobono, who would succeed Dr. Maurer as President in
2014, <a
href="https://nfb.org/sites/nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm11/bm1103/bm110302.htm">independently
drove</a> at the Daytona International Speedway, navigating obstacles randomly
thrown into his path and even passing another vehicle along the course. That
demonstration changed how the world viewed blind people and transportation
technology. It also helped to ensure that blind people were included in conversations
about autonomous vehicles from the very beginning.</p> <h3
id="uber-and-lyft-a-new-lane-but-not-our-road">Uber and Lyft: A New Lane, But Not
Our Road</h3> <p>Life has a funny way of presenting something only when you are
ready for it. So it is fitting that in the same year I was introduced to the
Federation and the story of the Blind Driver Challenge, transportation for blind
people changed in a meaningful way. 2014 was the year blind people discovered the
power of ride-share services. Uber and Lyft shook up the transportation arena like
an earthquake. No more did we have to wait for a taxi that may or may not show
up. No more were we forced to—as here in Arizona—ride a bus in
100-degree heat to go two miles up the street simply because we were not willing
to pay the $15 for a cab. Now, blind people had the power to request a ride from
their phone and go directly to their destination.</p> <p>At the time, blind people
were thrilled. I distinctly remember a friend of mine taking an Uber to a random
place just because he was so glad he could. For years, Uber and Lyft have been
great resources for our community and have participated in many Federation events,
including national and state conventions.</p> <p>Someone looking in from the
outside might assume that since Uber and Lyft arrived, life for blind people is
all good now. Of course, we in the Federation know differently. Even though
transportation got easier, defending our right to ride the way we want and need
to definitely got harder. Ride-share services introduced new barriers: How do we
find our vehicles? Is the app accessible? Would a driver really be okay transporting
a family with kids? But number one on this list—always—is the service
animal concern. Have a guide dog and want to take a ride-share? You may or may
not have a driver deny you. Of course, the Federation does not sit idle in the
face of discrimination. We held town halls, built tracking and reporting mechanisms,
and <a href="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm24/bm2411/bm241104.htm">rallied
at Uber and Lyft headquarters</a>. As my Federation philosophy developed, it became
clearer and clearer that good enough is not good enough.</p> <h3 id="a-ride-into-the-future">A
Ride into the Future</h3> <p>It was just two years after I became a Federationist
that I was first introduced to Waymo. Living in Arizona has its perks—sunny
for most of the year, no Daylight Saving Time, beautiful scenery, and tons of tech
innovation. In 2016, Waymo—operated by Alphabet, the parent company of
Google—was seeking feedback from blind people to test this emerging
technology. Somehow, I was invited to participate.</p> <p>I vividly remember
sitting in the backseat of that car as it drove—and being completely shocked.
Wow! At that time, state law still required a licensed driver to be present in
the front seat. So in the back of my mind, a question lingered: was this a truly
autonomous ride, or was I being fooled? Being the skeptic I was, I asked the driver
to prove the car was really driving itself. It was only when we were making a turn
and the driver grabbed my hand with both of his, showing me his hands were completely
off the wheel, that the reality hit me. The car not only made a perfect turn on
its own, it merged into the center lane more smoothly than anything I had ever
experienced. Something became very clear that day: it was not just that this
technology was amazing. What became even clearer was that if it were not for the
Federation, and the work we put into making sure this technology was inclusive,
I would not have been in that car at all.</p> <p>And yet, doubt crept in. There
is no way this becomes mainstream, I thought. In those early days, it was widely
held that someone capable of manual control needed to be present at all times.
Waymo launched its Early Rider program in the Phoenix area in 2017, began offering
paid rides in late 2019, and on October 8, 2020, officially opened its fully
driverless service to the public. For some, even then, it was hard to trust their
lives to a “robot.”</p> <h3 id="mapping-the-route-how-we-got-here">Mapping
the Route: How We Got Here </h3> <p>Between 2022 and 2024, Waymo rapidly expanded,
opening to the public in San Francisco and Los Angeles and significantly widening
its Phoenix coverage. In 2025, Waymo extended service to freeways in Phoenix, San
Francisco, and Los Angeles. Soon after, Waymo partnered with Uber to offer autonomous
rides in Austin and Atlanta. As of May 2026, Waymo operates paid commercial service
in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Miami, with announced
expansion into cities including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, Nashville,
Detroit, Las Vegas, Washington DC, and San Diego expected throughout 2026. London
and Tokyo are in active testing phases. The scale is staggering: Waymo now completes
more than 500,000 paid rides every week. Waymo is not the only player in the
industry, but it is the farthest along in providing commercial rides and has worked
closely with the National Federation of the Blind, hence this article’s
focus on its service.</p> <p>To understand where we are, it helps to know the
industry’s framework. The Levels of Autonomy—the scorecard for how
much a vehicle can operate without human input—range from zero to five.
Level zero is full human control—what most of us grew up with. Levels one
and two include common driver-assistance features; helpful, but the driver is
still fully responsible. Level three lets the car handle basic traffic conditions
but still requires a human backup. Waymo operates at level four: no human needed
at the wheel, though currently within defined service areas. Current Waymo vehicles
still have a steering wheel, mostly to satisfy existing federal regulations rather
than any technical necessity. Level five is the ultimate destination: a vehicle
that can operate in any weather, on any road, at any time, with no human required.
We are not there yet, but the progress at Level four is already changing our lives.
And when Level five does arrive, you can be sure the Federation will have its foot
on the gas!</p> <h3 id="no-more-riding-shotgun-the-policy-fight-for-our-drivers-seat">No
More Riding Shotgun: The Policy Fight for Our Driver’s Seat</h3> <p>The
legal landscape for Level four and five vehicles is at a major inflection point,
as lawmakers are finally starting to recognize the potential of this game-changing
technology. The Autonomous Vehicle Accessibility Act (H.R. 4419), a bipartisan
bill reintroduced by Congressmen Greg Stanton (D-AZ) and Brian Mast (R-FL) in the
119th Congress, is a high priority for the Federation. President Riccobono has
been vocal in his support, from testifying before Congress to engaging our members
in call-to-action campaigns. The bill is simple but revolutionary: it prevents
states from requiring a passenger to hold a driver’s license to use a Level
four or five autonomous vehicle. For us, this is not a small technical detail—it
is a civil rights protection. Our national leadership, along with the team at
Waymo, honored Congressman Stanton at Saavi Services for the Blind in Phoenix for
his leadership on this legislation. As the Legislative Director for the NFB of
Arizona, I can tell you this bill represents a vital step toward making sure the
driverless future does not leave our community in the backseat. We will literally
be able to sit in the driver’s seat. I highly encourage everyone reading
this to contact your member of Congress and urge their support. Before we know
it, Level five will be here, and we do not want to be in the slow lane!</p> <h3
id="the-data-passes-the-road-test">The Data Passes the Road Test </h3> <p>Some
reading this will ask: why trust your life to a robot? One need look no further
than the hard data. As of the publish date of this article, across more than 170
million fully autonomous miles driven in complex urban environments, the numbers
show that Waymo is significantly outperforming human drivers. Compared to human-driven
vehicles in the same operating areas, Waymo has recorded a ninety-two percent
reduction in serious or fatal injury crashes, an eighty-two percent drop in
injury-causing crashes overall, a ninety-two percent decrease in pedestrian injury
crashes, and a ninety-six percent reduction in dangerous intersection collisions.</p>
<p>For a community that has long faced the risks of distracted drivers, impaired
drivers, and quiet vehicles that seem to come out of nowhere, these statistics
prove that the driverless future is not just about independence—it is
fundamentally about a safer way to travel.</p> <h3
id="buckle-up-a-briefing-before-the-first-ride">Buckle Up: A Briefing Before the
First Ride</h3> <p>Before your initial Waymo trip, you must set up a profile in
the Waymo app. If you are in Austin, where our 2026 NFB National Convention is
being held, the regular Uber app gives you access to Waymo vehicles. Most features
carry over, though some accessibility options may be limited in the Uber version.
(Important: To be matched with a nearby Waymo vehicle, you must enable autonomous
vehicle rides in the Uber app.) For this article, we will be riding with the full
Waymo app.</p> <p>The Waymo app works similarly to other ride-share apps. You sign
up, add payment, and request rides just like you would with Uber or Lyft. You must
confirm that your destination is within the service area. Temperature controls,
trip tracking, and even leg room adjustments are available right in the app. As
you will soon discover, playing music and adjusting your pickup/drop-off are
definitely areas that need improvement. I will not go through every detail of the
app layout, since updates happen frequently and things change.</p> <p>The vehicles
themselves make it pretty obvious you are hopping into a robotaxi. Waymo’s
standard fleet is a modified Jaguar I-PACE—a sleek, all-electric SUV equipped
with sensors and cameras that make it look like something out of the movie <em>Back
to the Future</em>. Inside, it looks like a standard vehicle: driver’s seat
with a steering wheel, front passenger seat, and three seats in the back. The
trunk is spacious—large enough for me to fit a folding wagon and a
backpack—and can be opened and closed directly from the app. When you
approach, Bluetooth can automatically unlock the doors, or you can tap the unlock
button. The handles pop out of the doors. Waymo is also rolling out its next-generation
vehicle, the Waymo Ojai, an electric van built in partnership with Chinese automaker
Zeekr. (I was recently invited by Waymo to ride in these.) With a lower step-in
height, higher ceiling, basic Braille labeling of door buttons, and sliding doors,
the Ojai is purpose-built for ride-hailing and is beginning to appear alongside
the I-PACE fleet as Waymo expands into new markets.</p> <p>One of the most common
questions I get is about accessibility features. To Waymo’s credit—and
with meaningful input from the Federation—there are a solid number of
helpful features to take advantage of. When your ride is confirmed, you can use
the “Find My Pickup” feature. Holding your phone in front of your
body, the app announces the direction of the vehicle and how many feet away it
is. As you walk toward the car, your screen reader continuously updates your
position. Once the car arrives, you can use the same feature to locate it. You
can also have the car play a melody or honk its horn if you are in a noisy or
crowded environment. Personally, I find the horn feature a little more reliable,
though the melody is certainly cool. Live agent support is available through the
app at any time before, during, or just after your trip.</p> <p>There are two
settings you absolutely want to enable before you ride: audio announcements, which
call out street names at each turn and provide real-time updates like “Waiting
for intersection to clear,” and the feature that limits how far you need
to walk to your pickup or drop-off. This second feature has been helpful but
occasionally incorrect; I have had to walk close to a quarter mile in busy areas
at times.</p> <p>This is where I want to make something very clear: competent
nonvisual travel skills are not optional. They are what complete the trip. Because
the Waymo is not controlled by a person, it parks where its system determines is
appropriate. I have been dropped in alleys, near dumpsters, and across a busy
street from destinations. Because I have confidence in my nonvisual travel skills,
I have always found my way. Your cane, your confidence, and your travel training
matter—every single ride.</p> <h3 id="mile-zero-a-monday-morning-commute-with-wanda">Mile
Zero: A Monday Morning Commute with “Wanda” </h3> <p>All of that
history—the Daytona Speedway, the legislative battles, the safety
data—leads to a single Monday morning in Phoenix. Let me show you what it
actually feels like.</p> <p>Good morning, fellow Federation family member! I am
glad you could join me as I take my Waymo to work at Saavi Services for the
Blind’s Phoenix center. It is one of those Mondays where you can barely
remember what happened to the weekend. We are heading southwest from Northeast
Phoenix to Central Phoenix, just outside of Downtown, about fourteen miles total.</p>
<p>It is 7:00 a.m. My daughter Liberti just got picked up for school by her bus.
Let’s order the Waymo. I tap the “Work” destination already
saved in my phone, confirm my pickup address, and pay with Apple Pay. The app
shows the car is five minutes away. We head outside and stand in the driveway.</p>
<p>Holding my phone outward, I tap “Find My Pickup.” It says the
spot is forty feet ahead. For some reason, today’s pickup is not directly
in front of my house but across the street at the neighbor’s. We cross and
wait at the spot where my phone buzzes with a steady vibration—letting me
know I have arrived at the right place.</p> <p>It is a beautiful Arizona morning.
One of those mornings that makes you smile even when you have a million things on
your mind. A notification chirp tells me the Waymo is arriving. The app shows the
car is one hundred feet away. We listen and hear the soft hum of an electric motor
approaching from the east—not loud, something like a medium-sized industrial
fan running at a gentle setting. The car pulls up directly in front of us. It is
almost like it knew exactly where we were standing, you think.</p> <p>Because I
have Bluetooth enabled, we hear the click of the door handles popping out. “Go
ahead and sit in the front,” I tell you, since you are the guest on this
trip. I take the seat behind the driver’s side so you have the full front
passenger experience. You find the handle and pull. Immediately the car speaks:
“Good morning, Jordan.” My wife Ashleigh calls the Waymo voice
Wanda.</p> <p>The vibe hits you right away. Front passenger seat. No driver. Just
a steering wheel. You cannot help but reach over toward it—the seat where
the belt is buckled with no one in it. You feel the leather seats, the sleek
interior, the cup holders, the tactile details outlining the buttons. You find
the side controls and adjust your seat independently. You find your seatbelt and
click it in.</p> <p>Just then I get in and close the back door. Once both doors
are closed, we hear the gentle hold-like music through the speakers, a futuristic
version of what you might hear waiting on a phone call. “To begin your
ride, press the start button,” Wanda says. I ask if you are ready. You take
a few deep breaths. “Are you sure about this?” I remind you I do
this all the time. Just relax and enjoy the trip.</p> <p>My screen reader announces:
“Start ride button.” I tap it. “Double tap to start ride.”
The moment I double tap, the hold music stops, a small chime plays, and the doors
lock, all in one seamless motion. It all happens that fast. You take a deep
breath.</p> <p>We move. A smooth, clean takeoff. The engine grows quieter and that
familiar low hum of an electric car takes over. The car goes straight for about
ten seconds, shifts slightly left, makes a quick right turn, then stops. We are
at the entrance to my neighborhood. “Waiting for intersection to clear,”
Wanda says. The high school across the street starts at 7:30, and morning traffic
is thick. I ask if you are okay. You do not answer. You are sitting in stunned
silence.</p> <p>After about a minute, the car eases forward and makes a firm left
turn. “Proceeding on North 40th Street,” Wanda says. We drive for
another minute, slow slightly, and about thirty seconds later the car turns right.
“Proceeding on East Bell Road.” We are cruising now. Smooth. Quiet.
Just the ambient world around us—music drifting from a nearby car, the
whoosh of a bus braking.</p> <p>Just as you are settling in, the car drifts left.
It stops. “Waiting for intersection to clear.” Then it turns left.
“Entering Freeway,” Wanda says.</p> <p>“I did not know we
were taking the freeway!” you say, a definite hint of nervous energy in
your voice.</p> <p>“Live the life we want, right?” I say. “If
most Phoenicians take the freeway to work, why shouldn’t we?”</p>
<p>The car stops, inches forward, stops again, dancing with the traffic. Then the
engine surges. It feels like the moment before a plane lifts off the runway. About
ten seconds later Wanda says, “Proceeding on Arizona 51 South.”</p>
<p>Because you are still in awe, you put your window down. As we glide down the
freeway, you hear the signature sounds: the whoosh of passing cars, the deep engine
rumble of an eighteen-wheeler. You smell exhaust, feel wind against your face.
The Arizona morning sun warms your left side. You feel that warm sun mixed with
the chill of the wind and you start to relax. So far, so good, you think.</p>
<p>“I wonder what the traffic report looks like,” I say loud enough
for you to hear over the noise. “Why don’t we turn on the radio and
find out?”</p> <p>The wind is getting to you now, so you roll up the window.
The world goes quiet. I open Google Assistant and say: “Play the station
KTAR 92.3 FM on TuneIn on Waymo.” About ten seconds later, a jingle plays
and a deep voice announces: “Arizona’s Morning News.” I swipe
back to the Waymo app and adjust the volume, each swipe producing a small pop from
the speakers.</p> <p>After a few news stories we probably should not bring up in
this article, the traffic report hits. “A minor fender-bender on the 51
South has closed two left lanes from Glendale Avenue to McDowell Road.”
You ask if that is on our route. “Yes,” I say. “Well, it
wouldn’t be rush hour without traffic, right?” you say. “Now
Wanda is really going to be put to the test.”</p> <p>I put on some instrumental
music to lighten the mood. Quietly, I am hoping we will not be late—I hate
being late—but a small smile crosses my face. Here I am, a blind man on a
Phoenix freeway on a Monday morning, trying to beat traffic and get to work on
time. As American as apple pie and strip malls.</p> <p>And then, as if on cue,
the traffic hits. “Squeak.” “Beep.” The sounds close
in around us. The car plays its own game of red light, green light. We feel the
constant stopping and going. Five minutes pass. Then, suddenly: a jerk right, a
stop, another jerk, and we are moving freely again.</p> <p>“Wow!”
you say. “I think we just navigated around the traffic to find the open
lane!”</p> <p>You settle back, shoulders dropping. But just as you get
comfortable again, Wanda speaks. “Exiting freeway within one mile.”</p>
<p>Your energy shifts. I can feel it.</p> <p>A minute later, we slow, stop briefly
for a passing car, then ease right into the exit ramp. The car’s momentum
shifts as we follow the curve—smooth, deliberate, like a gentle roller
coaster. We complete the half-circle and stop abruptly.</p> <p>“Waiting
for intersection to clear,” Wanda says. I will not tell you this, but I am
getting a little nervous. We are cutting close to when I want to be at the
center.</p> <p>We wait. And wait some more. I skip the track. The thumping bass
is not matching the vibe right now. Simple piano notes arrive like a cold glass
of water on a hot Arizona day. Refreshing. “What a busy street!”
you say.</p> <p>After another minute and a half, the car moves again. “Proceeding
on East Indian School Road.” Finally!</p> <p>Surprisingly, Indian School
is clear for this time of morning. For the first time in the trip, you are genuinely
relaxed. You put your window down again. The breeze at surface-street speed is
manageable. The piano matches the mood: calm, present, unhurried. You rest your
arm on the window ledge. You hear the sounds of the city—traffic, a bus
pulling up to its stop, the chirp of a pedestrian signal.</p> <p>Moments like this
are why we are proud to be Federationists. We refused to let the inability to
drive determine where we could go. We wanted to reach places some said we never
could. A car with only blind people inside, no driver, moving through the city
completely on our own terms. We are going!</p> <p>“Can I try something?”
you ask. “Remember, we cannot touch the steering wheel,” I say with
a smile. “No, no,” you say. “Let me see your phone for a
second.” I hand it over, honestly not sure what you are about to do. Throw
it out the window? Go through my messages? Make a random call?</p> <p>About thirty
seconds later, it happens. It hits us like the final words of a Presidential Report
at a national convention. “Live the life you want. Nobody can stop you.
Reach for the sun and break on through.”</p> <p>It’s that song that
has defined our movement since it debuted at the NFB’s 75th Anniversary
Convention in 2015. James Brown and the Cane Tips, coming through Wanda’s
speakers! I put my window down, too. We both sing at the top of our lungs: “So
you’re blind, you’ll be fine. We got good news!!!”</p> <p>The
song blasts as we sit at a red light, and every single doubt, every moment of
believing I would never be able to live life like everyone else, every low
expectation I ever let take root—it all goes right out that open window.
The philosophy we carry in this movement—that blindness is a characteristic,
not a defining quality—has never felt more real than right now.</p>
<p>“It is a good thing we can’t see the faces people are making as
we sing out the window,” you say. “Who cares?” I reply. We
both laugh.</p> <p>As the car moves forward it turns left. “Proceeding on
North 7th Street,” Wanda says. We turn the music down and just sit together
in the moment. We proceed south for about a minute, both of us smiling, until a
chime plays. “Almost there,” Wanda says. “Don’t forget
your phone, keys, or wallet. Your future self will thank you.”</p> <p>As
the car slows for the right turn onto Verde Lane, the significance of this whole
trip fills me like the cup of coffee sitting in the cup holder. “Finding
a spot to pull over.” We feel the car ease slightly right, pause, ease a
little more. The hold music returns.</p> <p>“We have arrived at your
destination,” Wanda says. “Pull on the door handle to exit the
vehicle.”</p> <p>Reluctantly, you gather your things. You pull the handle,
grab your cane, and step out with an energy that says you want someone to notice
a blind person exiting a car with no driver. You close the door. “Bye,
Wanda,” you say.</p> <p>I come around to meet you on the sidewalk. We just
stand there together, breathing in the city air, taking everything in. Then the
car makes a small sound, the door handles click back into place, the wheels shift,
and we hear the quiet crunch of the road beneath them. Just like that, Wanda drives
off.</p> <p>We cross the small street toward the center. “We made it with
time to spare!” I say. You are quiet. In your head, the voices of our
movement are echoing. This journey brought us here, and this journey is a map for
everything that comes next.</p> <p>We walk inside. The Monday morning buzz is all
around us. “Thank you,” you say. “No—thank you,”
I say. “You are a Federationist, just like me. This is what we do.”</p>
<p>“What’s next?” you ask.</p> <p>“I am looking forward
to taking that autonomous flight with you,” I say.</p> <h3
id="speed-bumps-what-waymo-still-needs-to-fix">Speed Bumps: What Waymo Still Needs
to Fix</h3> <p>As I park the metaphorical vehicle that is this article, I want to
be honest: even as we celebrate how far this technology has come, we must not
settle for anything that does not fully meet our needs. The inability to independently
adjust your pickup or drop-off location on the map as a blind user is frustrating.
The in-car touchscreen is not accessible without sighted assistance. And the
process for playing music—requiring Google Assistant workarounds that
sometimes work instead of seamless screen reader integration—is, frankly,
maddening. These are not minor inconveniences. They are design gaps that a community
as engaged and vocal as ours should not have to accept as permanent features.</p>
<p>To Waymo’s credit, they are listening. The Federation’s relationship
with Waymo is not just ceremonial—Waymo has been a Grand Canyon-level
sponsor of NFB Arizona conventions, a Washington Seminar sponsor for two consecutive
years, and a sponsor of our Congressional Reception at Washington Seminar in 2024.
That relationship means we have a real place in the driver’s seat, not just
a ride in the backseat. We intend to use that seat.</p> <p>More intuitive voice
control, fully accessible in-car interfaces, AI-powered conversational
features—these are not wishes. They are expectations. And with the
Federation’s dedication and Waymo’s willingness to engage, we will
keep pushing until they are reality.</p> <h3 id="full-speed-ahead-we-are-not-going-back">Full
Speed Ahead: We Are Not Going Back</h3> <p>Now we have choices. We do not have to
worry about being turned away because of our service animals. We do not have to
make small talk with a driver who keeps asking about our blindness. We do not have
to apologize for our busy kids. I am reminded of something we have said many times
in the Federation: “We know who we are, and we will never go back!”</p>
<p>If you had asked me as a child whether a blind person could ever drive, I would
have laughed at you. That pot of gold called the Federation philosophy has led me
to a place I can never leave—a place of acceptance, a place where I no
longer have to wonder whether life as a blind person can be a full life. It drives
my work as Director of Strategic Initiatives at Saavi Services for the Blind. It
is the force behind my doing something my O&M teacher said could never be
done: teaching cane travel as a blind person. That boy who felt like he was always
missing out is now a man who cannot wait to drive his friends and family around
Phoenix whenever they visit.</p> <p>This philosophy is what my wife Ashleigh—lead
coordinator for NFB STEM2U—and I impart to our blind daughter Liberti, our
son Lemial, and the third child we are expecting later this year. Through the NFB,
they will grow up knowing that blindness is not an excuse to stop reaching for
your dreams. The low expectations of blindness will not be held by them. We are
already planning those cross-country road trips in our Level five.</p> <p>That
pot of gold does not have to seem too good to be true. The sense of missing out,
the feeling that we cannot live like everyone else, will still arise. But what
would have happened if we had let those low expectations define us? We would not
have had the Blind Driver Challenge. We would not be seated at the table where
the future of transportation is being shaped. The refusal to remain in the backseat
is what drives our movement forward. We are not afraid to let our voices be heard.
We are not afraid to show the world what blind people can do.</p> <p>I am reminded
of the words President Riccobono shared in his 2016 banquet address: “We
bond together in the National Federation of the Blind to face the uncertainty of
the future, to challenge ourselves to expand the horizons, and to take ownership
of living the lives we want. Society’s fears of blindness will not stop
us. Facing our own fears will make us stronger. And the power of our unwavering
love, hope, and determination will lead us through uncertainty to new heights.
Let us break down the conditioned fears of others. Let us challenge ourselves to
conquer the fears that stand in our way. Let us overwhelm fear with our unstoppable
engine of hope.”</p> <p>That unstoppable engine of hope has powered this
movement since 1940. It is the gas our membership puts in the tank every single
day. Our movement is the vehicle that empowers every one of us.</p> <p>When it
comes to blind people and driving, we will never be backseat drivers again! This
is one invention we are steering. Let us use it as a reminder that the road ahead
is wide open, and we have every right to drive on it!</p> <p>---------- </p> <h2
id="federation-sues-government-agencies-over-delayed-web-accessibility-rules">Federation
Sues Government Agencies Over Delayed Web Accessibility Rules</h2> <p>by Chris
Danielsen</p> <p>It goes without saying that for blind and deafblind Americans,
inaccessible websites and mobile applications are not a minor inconvenience. They
are barriers to healthcare, education, employment, civic participation, and
independence. That is why the National Federation of the Blind has fought for
equal access to digital content for the past two and a half decades or more. In
addition to entering into direct negotiations with companies, universities, school
districts, and government entities; providing resources to help businesses and
governments improve accessibility through the establishment and growth of our
Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility; and, usually when all else fails,
filing lawsuits, we fought for clear federal standards requiring government agencies
and healthcare providers to make their digital services accessible. In 2024, after
more than a decade of study, public comment, and rulemaking, the United States
Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services finally adopted landmark
regulations establishing those standards. Then, just as the first deadlines for
compliance arrived in spring 2026, the current executive administration abruptly
delayed them.</p> <p>This betrayal of the promise made to blind, deafblind, and
disabled Americans was covered in last month’s <em>Braille Monitor</em>.
As we reported then, we made several attempts to forestall these actions, which
government agencies had been signaling were coming. We wrote letters before the
documents announcing the delays, known in government jargon as interim final rules,
were even published. When they were finally issued, we submitted official comments.
(Our comments to the Department of Justice (DOJ) announcement were published in
May, and our comments to the Health and Human Services action follow this article.)
In addition, John Paré, our Executive Director for Advocacy and Policy, and
our general counsel Eve Hill, herself a former DOJ attorney, met with DOJ officials
on three separate occasions attempting to dissuade them from this course of action.
But now the adverse actions have been taken. So on May 21, 2026, the National
Federation of the Blind—represented by Democracy Forward and our longtime
allies at Brown, Goldstein & Levy of Baltimore, including Eve—filed
suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland challenging
the agencies’ actions.</p> <h3 id="why-litigation">Why Litigation?</h3>
<p>Suing the government is no small matter and some members have wondered why we
are pursuing litigation at this point rather than continuing our efforts at
persuasion. The answer is that, in addition to violating our rights, the interim
final rules violate a federal law known as the Administrative Procedure Act.
President Riccobono explained this well in an email to a member. Here it is:</p>
<p><em>Thank you for your email and for your commitment to protecting the rights
of blind Americans.</em></p> <p><em>I agree that collecting stories and engaging
in persuasion are important tools. In fact, they are tools we have been using. We
have gathered stories from affected individuals, educated policymakers, engaged
allies, communicated with agency officials, and worked to build public understanding
of the harm these actions would cause. The National Federation of the Blind has
always believed that changing hearts and minds is an important part of creating
lasting progress. However, this situation presents a challenge that cannot be
addressed through persuasion alone.</em></p> <p><em>The federal agencies involved
have taken actions that we believe violate the law, specifically the Administrative
Procedure Act. The issue before us is not simply whether we agree or disagree with
a policy outcome. The issue is whether federal agencies followed the legally
required process before taking actions that directly affect the rights and
opportunities of people with disabilities.</em></p> <p><em>The process for
challenging these agency actions provides only a limited window for legal action.
If we fail to act within that window, we risk losing the opportunity to obtain
meaningful relief regardless of how persuasive our arguments may be. Litigation
therefore is not a substitute for advocacy; it is a necessary tool for preserving
our rights when the government acts outside the bounds established by law.</em></p>
<p><em>It is also important to understand that we are not suing the President. We
are seeking relief from federal agencies that we believe have violated federal
law. We have never held back from taking action, and that action has no connection
to who is in power at the time. Our lawsuit asks the courts to require those
agencies to comply with the legal procedures Congress established. This is precisely
how our constitutional system is designed to function. When an agency exceeds its
authority or fails to follow required procedures, the courts provide a mechanism
for review.</em></p> <p><em>A letter-writing campaign can be valuable in influencing
policy decisions and shaping future actions. What it cannot do is remedy a violation
of the Administrative Procedure Act that has already occurred. Only the courts
can provide the legal relief necessary to address that violation.</em></p>
<p><em>More broadly, I do not see this as a choice between persuasion and litigation.
Throughout our history, the Federation has employed every available strategy when
defending the rights of blind people. We have educated the public, told our stories,
built relationships with policymakers, organized grassroots action, advocated
before administrative agencies, pursued legislative change, and, when necessary,
sought relief through the courts. These strategies are not mutually exclusive;
they reinforce one another.</em></p> <p><em>In fact, many of the Federation’s
most important victories have been achieved through a combination of public
education, political advocacy, and legal action. We persuade when persuasion can
solve the problem. We legislate when legislation is needed. And when government
agencies violate the law in ways that threaten the rights of blind Americans, we
use the legal system as well. Our responsibility is not to choose one tool over
another, but to employ every appropriate tool available to protect and advance
our rights. Please remember also that the campaign you are currently referring to
has been underway since at least 2010.</em></p> <p><em>We will continue telling
our stories. We will continue educating policymakers. We will continue engaging
our families, friends, and communities. We will continue building public support.
And when government agencies violate the law, we will continue to seek appropriate
relief through the courts.</em></p> <p><em>I appreciate your engagement and your
willingness to think critically about our strategy. I would be interested in your
reflections on what I have shared here. Do you see aspects of the persuasion and
relationship-building work that you believe we should strengthen further alongside
our legal efforts? I would welcome your thoughts.</em></p> <p><em>Sincerely,</em></p>
<p><em>Mark</em></p> <h3 id="the-substance-of-the-suit">The Substance of the
Suit</h3> <p>The complaint we filed argues, as explained above, that the Departments
of Justice and Health and Human Services violated federal law by delaying
implementation of the regulations without proper notice and public comment and
without adequately considering the harm to blind people and others with disabilities.
The lawsuit seeks court orders restoring the original compliance deadlines and
preserving the regulations that promised to bring disability rights protections
fully into the digital age.</p> <p>As background, the regulations at issue adopted
the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1
Level AA standards for digital accessibility. These standards are already widely
used across the globe and provide clear technical requirements for accessible
websites and apps. The DOJ and many of our nation’s courts have also adopted
the standards in court cases and in settlements reached with various parties. The
rules require covered entities to design websites and apps so that they work
properly with access technologies such as screen readers and refreshable Braille
displays. That includes ensuring that buttons and images are labeled properly,
forms can be completed nonvisually, and digital content is organized in ways that
allow blind users to navigate efficiently.</p> <p>Our complaint notes that the
regulations were the product of more than fifteen years of rulemaking, analysis,
and public input. The DOJ first announced its intention to establish accessibility
standards for government websites on July 26, 2010, the thirtieth anniversary of
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Over the following years, the agency
sought multiple rounds of public comments, conducted cost-benefit analyses, and
held listening sessions with stakeholders. In 2024, the DOJ finally promulgated
regulations under Title II of the ADA requiring state and local governments to
ensure that their websites and mobile applications comply with WCAG 2.1 Level
AA.</p> <p>At roughly the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services
finalized parallel regulations under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of
1973, the ADA’s predecessor, requiring healthcare providers such as hospitals,
nursing homes, and other recipients of federal financial assistance to make their
web content and mobile apps accessible.</p> <p>Both sets of regulations gave larger
entities two years to comply and smaller entities three years. As the lawsuit
explains, the agencies carefully weighed the need for accessibility against the
burden on covered entities and concluded that the compliance timelines struck the
proper balance between urgency and feasibility.</p> <p>But in April and May 2026,
only days before the first compliance deadlines arrived, the agencies issued the
interim final rules postponing implementation by another year. The DOJ extended
the compliance deadline for larger government entities from April 24, 2026, until
April 26, 2027, while the Department of Health and Human Services extended the
deadline for larger healthcare entities from May 11, 2026, until May 11, 2027.
The deadlines for smaller entities are now two years away, in 2028. Importantly,
although the agencies invited public comments on the interim final rules, they
said that they would go into effect immediately regardless. Even more troubling
than all that were the agencies’ signals, buried deep in the text of each
interim final rule notice, that they may attempt to weaken or further delay the
underlying accessibility rules in the future.</p> <p>The Federation’s
lawsuit argues that these delays, and any further tampering with the regulations,
are not only unlawful but also “arbitrary and capricious” because
little has meaningfully changed since the regulations were issued in 2024. In
other words, the same circumstances under which the agencies set the original
deadlines still exist; nothing has happened to make it harder for covered entities
to comply. According to the complaint, the agencies bypassed the normal
notice-and-comment process required under federal law (specifically the Administrative
Procedure Act) and instead imposed the delays immediately while only allowing
comments afterward. The complaint further argues that the agencies, having no real
evidence of changed circumstances or unrealistic expectations in the original
regulations, relied primarily on a few anecdotal assertions from longstanding
opponents of the rules and failed to meaningfully consider the harms that disabled
people would continue to experience as a result of the delays.</p> <h3
id="the-role-of-our-stories">The Role of Our Stories</h3> <p>Those harms are not
theoretical, as we all know. The complaint makes this clear for the court by
including stories from blind Federation members across the country, solicited
through our publications and social media, describing the barriers they continue
to encounter when government agencies, educational institutions, and healthcare
providers fail to make their digital services accessible. (Those stories are still
coming in, and you can submit yours by emailing <a
href="mailto:story@nfb.org"><u>story@nfb.org</u></a> or calling 410-659-9314,
extension 2444. They are still needed to support the lawsuit and our advocacy
efforts.)</p> <p>For example, Andrew Slater was unable to apply for unemployment
benefits in his home state of Illinois. “The website was not designed for
screen readers, making it difficult to navigate,” the complaint explains.
“Certain fillable online forms could not be completed, making it impossible
for him to submit his application for benefits online. Andrew spent hours attempting
to resolve the issue via phone calls directly to the relevant administrative
agency, and the agents he spoke with frequently recommended actions that were
similarly inaccessible for a blind screen reader user of the website. These barriers
resulted in inconvenience and wasted time that a sighted person does not have to
endure.” Many of us can doubtless identify with Andrew’s frustrating
experience. Who among us has not dialed a contact number provided on an inaccessible
website in hopes of finding a helpful human to get us around the problem only to
be referred back to the same website by a not-so-helpful human or, even worse, an
automated system that doesn’t let us get to any human at all?</p> <p>Barriers
to business registration, civic participation, and community life were also
addressed in the lawsuit. Sina Bahram, an accessibility consultant and entrepreneur
from North Carolina, encountered inaccessible online systems when attempting to
form a new corporate entity in his state. Because the state portal was unusable
with his screen reader, he had to hire a registered agent to complete the process
on his behalf, resulting in additional expense, inconvenience, and delay that
sighted business owners do not experience. Dana Ard, president of the National
Federation of the Blind of Idaho, described being unable to identify legislators
serving on relevant committees because Idaho state government websites were
inaccessible to her screen reader. As a result, she was unable to obtain information
needed to participate effectively in the democratic process. Margie Donovan of
California explained that, during her fifteen years of residence in her city,
inaccessible Parks and Recreation Department websites prevented her from independently
reviewing event calendars and information about community programming. Even after
raising concerns with city officials, the barriers remained.</p> <p>The complaint
also details the educational consequences of inaccessible digital systems. Lindsey,
a blind graduate student in California, encountered delays registering for coursework
because her university distributed the course catalog as an inaccessible PDF table
that her screen reader could not interpret. While her sighted classmates could
quickly review course offerings, she could not access the same information with
equal convenience or timeliness.</p> <p>Healthcare barriers described in the
complaint are equally troubling.</p> <p>Jolean O’Connell of Kentucky sought
telehealth counseling services but encountered an inaccessible online intake form
containing a signature field that could not be completed with a screen reader.
When she requested an alternative method for signing the form, the therapist
refused to provide services at all, telling Jolean that telehealth was not
appropriate for her.</p> <p>The complaint emphasizes that these examples represent
only a small sample of the barriers blind people face every day. The delayed
regulations were intended to address exactly these kinds of problems. The lawsuit
also pushes back against the government’s claim that the delays are necessary
because compliance would be too burdensome. The complaint notes that the agencies
already spent years considering those concerns before issuing the final rules.
The regulations included not only the statutory exceptions for undue burdens and
fundamental alterations contained in the original ADA, but also provided additional,
newly-created exceptions covering, for example, much pre-existing content, allowing
entities to focus primarily on making content accessible going forward, which is
simple and inexpensive. In addition, smaller entities were already given an extra
year to comply with the regulations. Therefore, the regulations as promulgated
relieved many burdens rather than imposing new ones. The complaint further argues
that many organizations have already spent years preparing for compliance and that
the administration’s last-minute delays create uncertainty rather than
clarity.</p> <h3 id="the-official-announcement">The Official Announcement</h3>
<p>In announcing the lawsuit, we stressed that digital accessibility is not optional
in a society where government services, education, and healthcare increasingly
exist online. “For over fifty years, our laws—specifically Section
504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities
Act—have promised blind Americans and other Americans with disabilities
equal access to all areas of life, including digital spaces and services. Yet
today this promise remains unfulfilled, and now our government is compounding the
outrage by asking us to wait even longer,” said Mark Riccobono, President
of the National Federation of the Blind in OUR OFFICIAL statement. “We will
not wait. We will fight to ensure that the promise of America’s laws, and
indeed its founding documents, finally becomes reality for blind and disabled
Americans.”</p> <h3 id="some-final-thoughts">Some Final Thoughts</h3>
<p>This litigation represents the latest chapter in the organized blind
movement’s long fight to ensure that technological progress benefits blind
people equally rather than leaving us behind and relegating us to second-class
citizenship. The internet long ago ceased to be a mere luxury or novelty. It is
now the primary gateway to government services, healthcare, education, employment,
and community involvement. Blind people cannot afford to wait indefinitely for
equal access while agencies continue postponing rules that have already been
studied, debated, and finalized.</p> <p>The National Federation of the Blind does
not seek confrontation, and we have patiently pursued both regulatory and legislative
avenues to achieve the goal of clear and comprehensive guidance for entities
covered by the civil rights laws that promise our full participation in society.
But we will not have the promise of full integration dangled in front of us only
to be unlawfully snatched away at the last minute with no credible justification
or fair opportunity, as guaranteed by our laws and the Constitution’s First
Amendment, to petition our government to seek redress for the ongoing harm being
done to us. In the courts or wherever else the battle is joined, we will continue
to engage until the war for the equal web is won.</p> <p>----------</p> <h2
id="national-federation-of-the-blind-official-comments-in-response-to-the-department-of-health-and-human-services-interim-final-rule-regarding-section-504-digital-accessibility">National
Federation of the Blind Official Comments in Response to the Department of Health
and Human Services Interim Final Rule Regarding Section 504 Digital Accessibility
</h2> <p><strong>From the Editor: The footnotes in the document reprinted below
have been omitted. To see the document in its original form, visit <a
href="https://nfb.org/advocacy">https://nfb.org/advocacy</a> and then click Policy
Statements.</strong></p> <p>May 29, 2026</p> <p>Paula Stannard<br /> Director<br
/> Office for Civil Rights <br /> United States Department of Health and
Human Services<br /> 200 Independence Avenue SW <br /> Washington, DC 20001</p>
<p>RE: RIN 0945-AA30</p> <p>Dear Director Stannard:</p> <p>The National Federation
of the Blind, the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind
Americans, appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Interim Final Rule (IFR)
regarding the regulation to establish specific requirements for web and mobile
apps offered by covered entities to the public, in accordance with Section 504 of
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (The Rehab Act). </p> <p>In 2024, we were
pleased to see the Department of Health and Human Services (the Department) moving
forward with a regulation addressing website and mobile application accessibility.
However, this IFR delaying the rule’s implementation for another year,
while also proposing to consider further changes to the final rule, is deeply
concerning.</p> <p>First and foremost, any delay of the compliance deadline for
the rule is utterly unnecessary. Covered entities have known for many years that
a digital accessibility rule was in the works, that the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA—an internationally recognized consensus
standard for digital accessibility—was published in June 2018, and that
the WCAG 2.1 AA standard was proposed in the 2023 NPRM and then officially adopted
in the May 2024 final rule. </p> <p>No matter how we choose to look at this,
covered entities have had a minimum of three years to familiarize themselves with
a set of guidelines that has existed since 2018. Delaying implementation or
enforcement for another year only acknowledges that covered entities knew the law,
did not meet it, and are now being given a pass rather than being held to the
standards they could have been meeting for years. </p> <p>While Section 504
covered entities, such as hospitals and medical diagnostics labs, are able to
postpone implementation of accessibility requirements for their websites, blind
Americans are not afforded the same luxury to postpone paying the bill. Consider
the story of Chris, a blind Marylander in Baltimore who was forced to go through
extraordinary measures just to pay an approximately ten dollar charge from LabCorp
because the company’s mobile app is inaccessible:</p> <p><em>I received a
text message from LabCorp stating that the bill for recent tests I had at Mercy
Hospital here in Baltimore was available and inviting me to pay it online. I was
busy so did not get to it until the next day. I thought I would quickly access
the link in the text message and pay the bill, which was a small one of just over
ten dollars. I was able to double tap on the link on my iPhone, and I was able to
get through the first screen, where my invoice number was pre-populated and I only
had to add my ZIP and birth date. </em></p> <p><em>When I got to the page
where I could view and pay the bill, however, I was unable to enter my credit card
information, even with the help of auto-fill features. The system threw errors
without letting me know what they were, and form fields where I was supposed to
insert information randomly disappeared or did not perform as expected.</em></p>
<p><em>I finally gave up and called the toll-free phone number for help. The first
thing it did, after letting me know how wonderful LabCorp is, was to ask for my
invoice number. This would have been printed on the invoice they mailed me, which
I did not have, so I had to hang up, find the invoice number on the initial web
page I accessed from the text message, and memorize it. </em></p> <p><em>I
dialed back in and was able to enter it, but then the system wanted my credit card
number. It did not give me enough time to enter the entire number using my iPhone
keypad. I finally had to dial in from my land line (which fortunately I haven’t
gotten rid of) so that I could use the tactile keypad on my land line phone to
enter all the information. After roughly a half hour to forty-five minutes of
doing all this, I was finally able to pay them the ten dollars they wanted. Had
their online portal been accessible, I probably could have paid the bill in two
minutes or less.</em></p> <p>Or Kelsey, who was unable to even schedule an
appointment due to an inaccessible online patient portal and had to wait on hold
for an unacceptable amount of time:</p> <p><em>I visited my primary care doctor
back in March for my annual physical. Prior to that, I was asked to complete blood
work. The hospital where my doctor is affiliated recently switched their lab
services to Quest Diagnostics. Unfortunately, their website and mobile app are
completely inaccessible, so just to make an appointment, I had no option but to
wait on hold for over an hour to talk to a person at corporate.</em></p> <p><em>The
person I spoke with was extremely rude and when I tried to explain that I
couldn’t use the website or the app because it is inaccessible to blind
people, all I got from her was “I apologize,” but no offer to try
to escalate to the appropriate department. When the day of the appointment came,
had my dad not been there, I would have been unable to sign in.</em></p> <p>These
are not offhand experiences for blind Americans, but rather near daily barriers
caused by inaccessible website and mobile applications used by Section 504 covered
entities. </p> <p>Fortunately for these covered entities, the tools, techniques,
and expertise needed to implement WCAG 2.1 are well established and commercially
available. Thousands of organizations, including many state and local governments,
have already achieved compliance. This is not difficult, and covered entities have
no excuse to still be out of compliance with the requirements of the 2024 final
rule. </p> <p>The IFR states that “the Department underestimated
burdens to recipients, especially smaller recipients, when setting the compliance
dates in the 2024 final rule.” We know the opposite to be true. Far from
underestimating the burden of coming into compliance, given the rapid development
of simple and inexpensive tools for making existing and new content accessible,
if anything, the 2024 final rule likely overestimated the cost and difficulty of
compliance.</p> <p>Moreover, Section 504 already provides two general defenses to
deal with any burden: (1) undue burden and (2) fundamental alteration. Both of
these longstanding exceptions are well-recognized by Americans with disabilities
and by the United States legal system. The IFR explicitly acknowledges this. To
be frank, the relevance of the undue burden defense is being mitigated through
the advancement of technology. </p> <p>We are living in an era where digital
accessibility is already relatively easy to attain, and it is only getting easier.
Therefore, there is simply no basis for an assumption that covered entities will
face a significant burden to make their websites and mobile apps accessible. </p>
<p>However, the final rule goes further; adding five new classes of exception to
the requirement to make web and app content accessible. These exceptions relieve
covered entities of the need to make much pre-existing content accessible, thus
further reducing any burden. These proposed exceptions go far beyond the current
undue burden and fundamental alteration defenses and therefore substantively
decrease the obligations of existing law. </p> <p>The proposed exceptions
exempt broad swaths of new and existing content regardless of how easy the content
is to make accessible and regardless of the resources available to do so. These
exceptions allow covered entities to focus their efforts on making new content
accessible—which is inexpensive and simple to accomplish.</p> <p>Two to
three years was more than enough time for covered entities to develop processes
and procedures to ensure new content is accessible. Any further delay in compliance
only compounds the problem by allowing for the creation of more new and inaccessible
content.<br />  <br /> Providing accessibility for new web content is neither
unduly burdensome nor costly, and covered entities should not be able to avoid
providing accessibility for new content unless they can demonstrate that doing so
would actually constitute an undue burden or fundamental alteration. Requiring
still another year before being in compliance with the law is an outrageous
admission that the civil rights of Americans with disabilities are not a priority.</p>
<p>It is true that some existing content may properly be subject to an exception
because it may arguably be presumed that it will be burdensome in most instances.
However, new content should never be presumed to be burdensome to make accessible
in the absence of some unusual constraint on the resources of the particular
covered entity. The entity is in the best position to determine what those
constraints are, to document them in real-time, and to respond affirmatively to
assertions of liability. </p> <p>People with disabilities should not lose
access to important information, including new content by large entities, simply
because some small entities may, for reasons unique to them, have difficulty
complying. Those entities already have an additional year to comply and a defense
available to them. Here again, failing to implement and enforce the rule now
because of the Department’s belief that entities will fail to comply only
serves to provide a pretextual justification for continuing to deny people with
disabilities the access guaranteed by law. </p> <p>It is preposterous for
the Department to say simultaneously that the law already protects people with
disabilities, that the law must be enhanced because it is not actually protecting
people with disabilities, and also that such enhancements will come eventually,
but not today, not this year, but maybe next year or the year after that, all
because some entities may have an undue burden that they have yet to raise or
support.</p> <p>Furthermore, as the IFR states, “the Department is concerned
that noncompliance among a significant portion of those recipients would lead to
a significant increase in litigation.” This is only partially true. As the
IFR notes, a private right of action is already available under Section 504. The
thousands of lawsuits that get filed every year, targeting digital accessibility
specifically, are not dependent upon this rule. </p> <p>For example, in 2025
3,117 ADA Title III website accessibility lawsuits were filed in federal courts.
Note that statistic is for ADA Title III website accessibility suits, and that
rulemaking for Title III has not progressed beyond an Advance Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (ANPRM) published on July 26, 2010. Lawsuits regarding digital
accessibility under Section 504 can proceed directly under the statute and the
existing regulations.</p> <p>If anything, further delaying the compliance deadline
does not reduce litigation risk, it increases it by removing the one clear,
predictable technical standard and exceptions that Section 504 covered entities
could rely on. Without the rule’s compliance framework, courts will be at
leisure to continue applying the Rehab Act’s general effective-communication
standard for digital content without defined benchmarks for compliance. </p>
<p>Finally, in what is by far the most concerning part of the IFR, the Department
states: “The Department plans to engage in future rulemaking related to
the substantive requirements of the 2024 final rule. During the extension period,
the Department will consider issuing an NPRM providing members of the public with
an opportunity to comment on the substance of the 2024 final rule and any changes
proposed by the Department, including any changes that would affect the web content
and mobile app accessibility requirements.”</p> <p>This sentence transforms
the IFR from a mere delay into a staging action for a far more consequential attack
on the rule itself. The National Federation of the Blind is categorically opposed
to further limiting the scope of the final rule as published in 2024. As we have
repeatedly pointed out, the rule offers covered entities five additional exemptions
beyond those provided by undue burden and fundamental alteration. </p> <p>This
watering-down of our rights is wrong enough. Any additional reduction in our rights
is not merely a subtraction of those rights, but an exponential decrease. The
National Federation of the Blind would stand in direct opposition to such degradation
and would work tirelessly to ensure it does not come to fruition.</p> <p>In closing,
the National Federation of the Blind again appreciates the opportunity to comment
on the Section 504 Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Programs or
Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance Final Rule.</p> <p>We urge the
Department to let the rule go into effect with no further delay. We further urge
the Department to immediately cease any plans or efforts toward additional rulemaking
on this regulation. We look forward to the entire rule being implemented and
enforced. If there are any further questions, or if we can be of assistance in
any way, please do not hesitate to contact us. </p> <p>Sincerely,<br /> Mark
A. Riccobono, President<br /> National Federation of the Blind</p> <p>----------</p>
<p>[PHOTO CAPTION: Amy Porterfield]</p> <h2 id="how-i-came-to-the-federation">How
I Came to the Federation</h2> <p>by Amy Porterfield</p> <p>I was about six weeks
old when my parents figured out I wasn’t tracking anything visually. The
doctors confirmed I was totally blind. My mom and dad had never met a blind person
before. When the doctor told them to place me in a sanatorium in Coolidge, Arizona,
because raising a blind child would be too hard, they knew there had to be a better
way.</p> <p>My mother called what was then Arizona Services for the Blind. A young
blind man named Ray Mungaray picked up the phone. He told my parents I could live
a good life, and that it was their job to help me explore the world. They took
him at his word. My childhood is full of memories that prove it. My father would
distract the staff at a museum while my mother ducked me under the velvet ropes
to touch the exhibits. My mother opened boxes on toy store shelves so I could feel
what was inside. In our house, curiosity wasn’t just permitted. It was
expected.</p> <p>My father became a teacher and later an administrator at the
Arizona School for the Blind, and my mother worked in the dorms. Both spent over
thirty years at the school. My father used to tell me, “You are normal.
You just can’t see.” That sentence was the interior compass I carried
about what every blind person had the right to expect from their own life. But
having a compass is not the same thing as trusting it when a credentialed voice
tells you to put it down.</p> <h3 id="the-long-detour">The Long Detour</h3> <p>I
didn’t go straight into the field. I spent years in other human services
work while earning my master’s in rehabilitation counseling and raising my
preschool-aged son, Jordan, on my own. When a position opened teaching access
technology at what was then the Southern Arizona Association for the Visually
Impaired, I took it.</p> <p>Once I was in the building, it didn’t take long
to see how differently blind and low-vision students were treated. Students with
residual vision were given opportunities to try things. Students with none were
given excuses. I started meeting with the executive director about what more could
be built, and together we wrote a grant so that I could complete my master’s
internship at the agency, build a comprehensive program, and get paid for the
work. As a single mother raising Jordan, an unpaid internship was not something
I could afford. The grant was how I took care of my son and stayed in the field
at the same time.</p> <p>Even with the grant in place, the culture around me did
not change. My supervisor told me to teach my students about good-guy drinking
glasses and bad-guy glasses. Tall or thin glasses were the bad guys because they
would be too hard to pour into. I was supposed to teach that in the name of safety.
I refused. There were other things I also refused. My students were called my
disciples. I was often ostracized by my sighted peers.</p> <p>I eventually left
to work at the Arizona Rehabilitation Services Administration, where I met people
doing the work differently. I met Julie Deden from the Colorado Center for the
Blind and saw what authentic blind training looked like, where students led and
confidence was not a goal but an expectation.</p> <h3 id="a-class-in-a-living-room">A
Class in a Living Room</h3> <p>Around the same time, I enrolled in a rehabilitation
teaching methods class taught out of a living room. Bob Kresmer, now the board
chair of Saavi Services for the Blind and then the president of the Tucson Chapter,
and his wife, Lynn, taught it out of their home. It was the best class I ever
took. They had made the environment so completely accessible that there was nothing
to accommodate. Philosophy and technique were the same subject, braided together.
Bob started inviting me to the National Convention, and every year I had a reason
I couldn’t go. Eventually, when Mike Gordon became Saavi’s executive
director and brought me back as associate director, he told me to go, and that
the organization would support it. So I went.</p> <h3 id="the-convention-lobby">The
Convention Lobby</h3> <p>It was the day before convention, the evening when everyone
reconnected after a year apart. I had come down to the hotel lobby to meet Bob
and Lynn Kresmer. While I waited, I really listened to what was around me: canes
tapping in every direction, conversations overlapping, and people greeting each
other like family.</p> <p>What captured me first was the young, confident blind
women. They moved the way I moved. They talked the way I talked. They carried the
confidence I had always carried. I realized, sitting there, that I had been missing
these friendships in my own life. I had grown up around blind adults and blind
friends, but I did not have a peer community of blind women who were mine. The
second thing I realized, almost without a gap, was that my students back home were
missing this too.</p> <p>Then I saw a teenager I recognized. The year before, we
had worked with him at our “Ready, Set, Go” summer camp, and my
orientation and mobility teachers had told me, with the confidence of professionals,
that he would never travel independently. I didn’t question it. I took them
at their word. That same young man had gone to the Colorado Center for the Blind
after our camp, and every time I turned around in that convention hotel, there he
was: traveling on his own, crossing streets, and moving with his friends. He had
been let loose.</p> <h3 id="the-shame">The Shame</h3> <p>I want to tell the truth
about what I felt in that lobby, because if I don’t tell it honestly, I
can’t tell the rest of this story. I felt a profound shame. The shame
wasn’t that I hadn’t known. That would have been easier. The shame
was that I already knew. My father had handed me the compass when I was a child.
Ray Mungaray had told my parents, before I was old enough to remember, that my
life could be a full one. The <em>Braille Monitor</em> and the Kernel Books had
come to our house my whole life. I still remember a piece I read years ago by a
woman who had a mouse in her house and had to catch it and let it out. I used to
turn it over in my mind, picturing how she had done it, running through how I
would do it myself if I ever had to. I think about that piece to this day. So I
knew that blind women lived ordinary lives, solved ordinary problems, and wrote
about them in their own voices. Everything I needed to push back on what my
orientation and mobility teachers had said about that young man, I already had.
And I didn’t use it. I deferred to their credential over the student’s
own potential.</p> <p>That is the conditioning it would take me years to name.
Low expectations are insidious. They live in the blind adult at the buffet line
deciding whether to try to serve herself. They live in the habit of saying,
“I can’t,” when what we mean is, “I was told I
couldn’t.” Every one of us has done some version of this. I certainly
have.</p> <p>I came home from that convention and went straight to Mike. I told
him we were hurting our students by not letting them find their own potential,
that the Federation was offering something critically important we had been missing,
and that we had to learn it together. Mike believed me. He caught my zeal and he
backed me. The rebuilding of everything we thought we knew is a story for another
article.</p> <h3 id="the-work-across-years">The Work Across Years</h3> <p>The
first time I met Mark and Melissa Riccobono was at an Arizona state convention
when, in 2011, Mark was serving as our national representative as the executive
director of the NFB Jernigan Institute. He was kind and funny, and he was the
first person to make me feel like a real Federationist rather than a professional
visiting from the outside. What he offered me that day is what I have tried to
offer every person I have met in the Federation since. A way to join, and to feel
like they matter. That is the most important work I feel I can do in the Federation.
Melissa was there with their toddlers, moving through the convention as an
independent mother and a professional at the same time. I was still a single mom
then, and watching Melissa was its own kind of affirmation.</p> <p>Every convention
I attended in those growing years surfaced another layer. One year the layer was
what I had allowed at the center. The next it was catching myself still deferring
to a sighted lead in small ways. Each year, Federationists beside me were working
on the same layer. We didn’t finish the work. We shared it.</p> <p>Pam and
Rolland Allen and Joanne and Harold Wilson became mentors and friends. We would
catch up at convention and keep the conversation going in between. Pam had a way
of listening long enough and patiently enough for me to find the next step. Joanne
had a way of pumping me back up when I was discouraged until I remembered why I
had started.</p> <p>The closest anchor through all of it has been my husband,
Donald Porterfield. Donald came to Saavi as a student. After his training we began
dating and we built a life together. He is a prosecuting attorney by profession
and today serves as president of the National Federation of the Blind of Arizona.
He believes it is our responsibility to use our gifts to advocate for those who
haven’t yet found how to use theirs. That belief has been the steadying
line through convention after convention where I found another layer of the shame
to work through. Donald has walked me back into the work more times than I can
count, and he has walked a great many other blind Arizonans into it beside him.</p>
<h3 id="what-the-federation-is-for">What the Federation Is For</h3> <p>Becoming
a Federationist did not make me a different person. It reintroduced me to the
person I had already been. What the Federation adds is the part no training center
and no mentor can provide alone. It is the place where the work of pushing back
against low expectations gets held across time, across members, and across
generations so that no one of us carries it alone.</p> <p>I know this in a particular
way now, because I have watched it happen in the lives of our students. The young
blind people I first started bringing to convention years ago meet each other
there, year after year. They have become each other’s roommates, best
friends, wedding party members, and babysitters. They are raising each other’s
children beside their own. The friendships I spent my twenties looking for are
the friendships they have now, and they have them early. That is why we show up
at convention together, loud and proud. Not because we are trying to be noticed,
but because we actually love each other, and a room full of people who love each
other tends to make a certain amount of noise.</p> <p>That is the life I wanted
for that teenager the first time I saw him free in a hotel lobby. It is the life
I want for every student who walks through the doors of Saavi Services for the
Blind. And it is the reason that, whenever a student graduates from our program,
I tell them the same thing: Training gives you skills. The Federation gives you
a home.</p> <p>----------</p> <p>[PHOTO CAPTION: Ahmad Shafi]</p> <h2
id="becoming-blind-finding-the-truth-beyond-vision">Becoming Blind: Finding the
Truth Beyond Vision</h2> <p>by Ahmad Shafi</p> <p><strong>From the Editor: Ahmad
Shafi is president of the National Federation of the Blind of West Virginia and
participated in the 2025-26 cohort of the Kenneth Jernigan Leadership in Service
Program.</strong></p> <p>Growing up, no one would have ever considered me blind.
Most people assumed I was clumsy, and that probably made sense at the time since
I bumped into things constantly. I’ve always worn prescription glasses, so
to others I could “see.” What I didn’t realize was that my
experience of the world wasn’t the same as everyone else’s. When
night came, my vision disappeared almost entirely—but I assumed that was
normal.</p> <p>Blindness was not unfamiliar in my life. My mom taught us to offer
help to blind people crossing the street. My first babysitter was blind. I
didn’t think much of it—I even used to hide from her as a game. She
took care of us, fed us, walked with us, and rode the bus. My uncle is also blind
and has worked at the same hospital longer than I’ve been alive. Even with
all of that exposure, I didn’t truly understand what it meant to be blind.</p>
<p>That changed when I was about the age of 13. I was admitted for a sleep study
for unrelated reasons, and a doctor noticed something unusual in my eyes. After
multiple appointments with retinal specialists, they diagnosed me “legally
blind” with Retinitis Pigmentosa. It was a shock—but also an
explanation. Suddenly, the things I struggled with made sense. For my mom, it was
much harder to learn that her son had a rare genetic eye disease.</p> <p>In seventh
grade, I was given a choice: start learning Braille and Orientation and Mobility
(O&M) right away, or wait until high school. I chose to start immediately,
and I’m glad I did. At that point, I didn’t feel ashamed of being
blind. In fact, I was excited. I told my friends when I got back to school. But
their reaction changed everything. They told others, and soon they began avoiding
me. That was the moment I learned that blindness, to others, meant something very
different. From then on, I became more selective about who I told and when I used
my cane.</p> <p>That summer, I attended programs at the Romney School for the
Blind. I earned my first leadership award there. I also visited places like
Gallaudet University for the deaf and the headquarters of the National Federation
of the Blind. There, I had my first real conversations about blindness. But even
then, I didn’t fully understand what was possible. I remember saying I
would never let a blind person cut my hair. I even saw the now President Riccobono
driving a car and thought maybe I could still drive someday. I had hope—but
not yet clarity. So I kept searching.</p> <p>I attended NASA Space Camp for Visually
Impaired Students throughout high school. I joined programs that took blind students
skiing, whitewater rafting, and ziplining. At sixteen, I was selected to raft the
Grand Canyon. I was surrounded by blind people doing incredible things. But despite
all of these experiences, something was missing. None of these programs fully
changed how I understood blindness.</p> <p>That began to shift my junior year,
when my O&M instructor told me about people with my condition—Retinitis
Pigmentosa—who never fully accepted blindness or learned the skills they
needed. He also told me about the Louisiana Center for the Blind. Around the same
time, I realized how easily blind students can fall through the cracks. I had not
been introduced to access technology early enough. I had to fight for what I
needed. In college, that fight continued. I studied cybersecurity, but the systems
we relied on—websites, course platforms, exams—weren’t
accessible. When I raised concerns, I was asked to prove it. Even when I did,
little changed. When COVID moved everything online, the barriers became overwhelming,
and I had to withdraw.</p> <p>That was the turning point. I made a decision: I
was going to live as a blind person—fully and without apology. I committed
to using my cane everywhere outside my home. I decided that if people had a problem
with it, those weren’t the people I needed in my life. Shortly after, I
reconnected with the National Federation of the Blind through members in West
Virginia. Listening to their stories brought back the hope I had felt years
before—but this time, it was different. When I shared my story, they
didn’t measure me by how much vision I had. They accepted me completely.
Through them, I learned about my rights, about advocacy, and about what was truly
possible. They helped me access resources and supported my decision to attend the
Louisiana Center for the Blind—even when others in my life doubted it.</p>
<p>That experience changed everything. At the center, I learned practical skills
like cooking, cleaning, and technology while wearing learning shades, but more
importantly, it changed how I saw myself. I stopped thinking of myself as “a
person with some vision trying not to be blind.” I accepted that I am a
blind person—and that blindness does not limit my ability to live a full
life. I became adaptable. I gained confidence. I developed real independence.</p>
<p>Today, I serve as president of the National Federation of the Blind of West
Virginia. I am working toward becoming a certified Orientation and Mobility
instructor so I can help others navigate their own journeys.</p> <p>Looking back,
I’ve had many experiences as a blind person—some exciting, some
difficult, some transformative. But no organization has had a greater impact on
how I understand blindness than the National Federation of the Blind. They
didn’t just teach me skills. They taught me to expect more from life.</p>
<p>And now, I want others to know what I didn’t know at the beginning: You
have rights. You have options. And you are capable of far more than you may believe
right now.</p> <p>If you’re at the start of your journey, I encourage you
to connect, to learn, and to share your story. You never know who it might
reach—or how it might change their life.</p> <p>----------</p> <h2
id="we-need-your-help">We Need Your Help</h2> <p><em>Through the Federation, I
learned that most of what I was taught to believe about blindness was untrue.
Being blind wasn’t something to be ashamed of. Using my cane in public
wasn’t weird. If I wanted to pick up my cane or my [guide] dog and walk
somewhere, I could just do it because the fears of other people didn’t have
to be my fears too.</em> - Julie</p> <p>Blind people across the United States
are making powerful strides in education and leadership, but we need to continue
helping people like Julie. For more than eighty years, the National Federation of
the Blind has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind
people into reality. With support from individuals like you, we can continue to
provide powerful programs and critical resources now and for decades to come. We
hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring movement by including the National
Federation of the Blind in your charitable giving and in your estate planning. It
is easier than you think.</p> <h3 id="with-your-help-the-nfb-will-continue-to">With
your help, the NFB will continue to:</h3> <ul> <li><p>Give the gift of literacy
through Braille.</p></li> <li><p>Mentor young people.</p></li> <li><p>Promote
independent travel by providing free, long white canes to blind people in
need.</p></li> <li><p>Develop dynamic educational projects and programs to show
blind youth that science and math careers are within their reach.</p></li>
<li><p>Deliver hundreds of accessible newspapers and magazines to provide blind
people the essential information necessary to be actively involved in their
communities.</p></li> <li><p>Offer aids and appliances that help seniors losing
vision maintain their independence.</p></li> </ul> <p>Below are just a few of the
many tax-deductible ways you can show your support of the National Federation of
the Blind.</p> <h3 id="vehicle-donation-program">Vehicle Donation Program</h3>
<p>We accept donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, or
recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free, and a representative can
make arrangements to pick up your donation. We can also answer any questions you
have.</p> <h3 id="general-donation">General Donation</h3> <p>General donations
help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and the work to help blind people
live the lives they want. You can call 410-659-9314, extension 2430, to give by
phone. Give online with a credit card or through the mail with check or money
order. Visit our online contribution page at: <a
href="https://nfb.org/donate"><u>https://nfb.org/donate</u></a>.</p> <h3
id="pre-authorized-contributions">Pre-Authorized Contributions</h3> <p>Through
the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters sustain the efforts of
the National Federation of the Blind by making recurring monthly donations by
direct withdrawal of funds from a checking account or a charge to a credit card.
To enroll, call 877-NFB-2PAC, or fill out our PAC Donation Form <a
href="https://www.nfb.org/pac"><u>https://www.nfb.org/pac</u></a>.</p> <h3
id="plan-to-leave-a-legacy">Plan to Leave a Legacy</h3> <p>The National Federation
of the Blind legacy society, our Dream Makers Circle, honors and recognizes the
generosity and imagination of members and special friends who have chosen to leave
a legacy through a will or other planned giving option. You can join the Dream
Makers Circle in a myriad of ways.</p> <h4 id="percentage-or-fixed-sum-of-assets">Percentage
or Fixed Sum of Assets</h4> <p>You can specify that a percentage or a fixed sum
of your assets or property goes to the National Federation of the Blind in your
will, trust, pension, IRA, life insurance policy, brokerage account, or other
accounts.</p> <h4 id="payable-on-death-pod-account">Payable on Death (POD)
Account</h4> <p>You can name the National Federation of the Blind as the beneficiary
on a Payable on Death (POD) account through your bank. You can turn any checking
or savings account into a POD account. This is one of the simplest ways to leave
a legacy. The account is totally in your control during your lifetime and you can
change the beneficiary or percentage at any time with ease.</p> <h4 id="will-or-trust">Will
or Trust</h4> <p>If you do decide to create or revise your will, consider the
National Federation of the Blind as a partial beneficiary.</p> <p>Visit our Planned
Giving webpage (<a
href="https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give/planned-giving"><u>https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give/planned-giving</u></a>)
or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more information.</p> <h3
id="in-2025-our-supporters-helped-the-nfb">In 2025 our supporters helped the
NFB:</h3> <ul> <li><p>Host career fair and employment mentoring events for over
three hundred and fifty job seekers.</p></li> <li><p>Distribute over six thousand
free white canes to blind people across the United States, empowering them to
travel safely and independently throughout their communities.</p></li> <li><p>Deliver
more than five hundred newspapers and magazines to more than 135,000 subscribers
with print disabilities free of charge.</p></li> <li><p>Give over six hundred
Braille-writing slates and styluses free of charge to blind users.</p></li>
<li><p>Mentor 153 blind youth during our Braille Enrichment for Literacy and
Learning® Academy.</p></li> <li><p>Distribute over twenty-three thousand
Braille books to children and adult readers alike.</p></li> <li><p>Award thirty
scholarships each in the amount of $8,000 to blind students.</p></li> </ul> <p>Just
imagine what we will do in 2026, and, with your help, what can be accomplished
for years to come. Together with love, hope, determination, and your support, we
will continue to transform dreams into reality.</p> <p>----------</p> <p>[PHOTO
CAPTION: Eric Duffy]</p> <h2 id="bells-should-be-ringing-everywhere">BELLs Should
Be Ringing Everywhere</h2> <p>by Eric Duffy</p> <p>I joined the National Federation
of the Blind in 1984. I have held various offices in my local chapter and state
affiliate. I have served as president of the National Federation of the Blind of
Ohio, and I was Director of Access Technology at the National Federation of the
Blind Jernigan Institute. But one of my most rewarding roles has been that of
BELL® Coordinator for the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio.</p> <p>The
BELL (Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning) program is for blind and
low-vision children ages four to twelve. This innovative program was designed and
built from the ground up by the National Federation of the Blind. We created the
program because we recognized the need for blind children to receive more instruction
in Braille than they get during the school year and certainly during the summer.
I have coordinated four of the seven programs that the Ohio affiliate has conducted.
I have consulted with affiliates that have started programs. For a number of
reasons, we have not had a BELL program now in Ohio for a few years. Rather than
coordinating a program, I have had time to reflect on the value of BELL. I know
that we do far more than teach Braille in these programs, and I for one wonder
what my life might have been like today had I been introduced to the National
Federation of the Blind through the BELL program. But all of my contemplation on
that subject will help no one, including me. Here is what I know for sure: We
change lives through this program. Not only do we change children’s lives,
we change the lives of blind and sighted adults as well. I plan to demonstrate
this through this article and, in doing so, make the argument that BELLs should
be ringing everywhere from here on out.</p> <p>In 2013, Ohio conducted its first
BELL program. It was a day program, and I believe we had six students. For most
of these students, blindness was their only disability, but it was clear that they
all needed the National Federation of the Blind. Not all of the blind adults knew
it at the beginning of the program, but we needed them, too. Working this program
took most of us out of our comfort zone at least a little, and that’s always
a good thing. We challenged the students, and they challenged us. They challenged
us to think of exactly how to teach a particular skill. Even at their young ages,
they challenged us to explain the importance of wearing learning shades or using
a cane. The program lasted two weeks, and most of our volunteers stayed at the
Ohio State School for the Blind and commuted to the location of the program each
day. The days were long for everyone, and long days turned into long weeks. But
we did it. We were proud of our accomplishments and those of the kids. We were
satisfied with our work. The students and their parents seem pleased as well.</p>
<p>But we knew that the real test of what we had accomplished was yet to come.
What was going to happen in 2014? Could we fund the program? Could we get enough
students again? Could we get some of the same students back? Could we get more
students? Could we get enough volunteers again?</p> <p>The answer to all of these
questions was overwhelmingly yes from 2014 to 2018. In 2016, we made the decision
to conduct a one-week residential program to be held at the school for the blind.
Before we were too far along in the planning, I accepted a job at the New Jersey
Commission for the Blind. But it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows the
Federation that the show went on. Federation leaders in Ohio filled the void and
ran successful programs in 2016 and 2017. There was no program in 2018, but in
2019 I had the privilege of coming back to Ohio to live and to coordinate another
BELL Academy. Somewhere along the way (and I honestly can’t remember when)
we began using the word “academy” rather than “program.”
Academy is a much more appropriate word than program. Although I had to get used
to this change, many of the students who participated in our first program were
still with us. To me this spoke to our success more than anything else to that
point. The students wanted to come back, and their parents were bringing them
back. This wouldn’t have happened if the students hadn’t been learning
and growing and if the learning and growing couldn’t be attributed directly
to BELL.</p> <p>But to me that still doesn’t pass the smell test. For me
the question is: How do we know we changed lives? Do the families understand the
importance of the National Federation of the Blind? Without a doubt, it is safe
to say yes. How do I know? I stayed in contact with some of the families after
they stopped coming to BELL. Some families attended state and national conventions.
At least one of our first BELL students is now a member of the Capital Chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio. She is also involved in the National
Association of Blind Students. She attended the Midwest Student Seminar this
spring. One challenge in doing this was that she had to convince her family that
she should and could do this on her own. She did, and, while there, she met Mark
and Melissa Riccobono. She has just completed her freshman year at Miami University
of Ohio. Here is a story that appeared in the student newspaper:</p> <h3
id="miami-university-student-honored-for-winning-national-braille-challenge">Miami
University Student Honored for Winning National Braille Challenge</h3> <p><em>Miami
University News<br /> </em>May 6, 2026</p> <p><em>MaKenzie Love was honored by
the Ohio legislature recently for being the first Ohioan to win the national
Braille Challenge in 2025 as a high school senior.</em></p> <p><em>Now a first-year
student at Miami University, Love told lawmakers about the importance of Braille,
a system of writing that uses characters made up of raised dots. She uses Braille
every day at Miami and has even read the</em> <em>“Harry Potter”
series in Braille.</em></p> <p><em>“Braille literacy is absolutely crucial
to the lives of blind and low-vision students. Over ninety percent of students
that read Braille are employed, but the startling statistic is that only ten
percent of blind people in the United States read Braille,” Love, of
Commercial Point, told lawmakers on the floor of the Ohio House of Representatives
in late March.</em></p> <p><em>“We need to get out there as a nation and
as a community, and as Ohioans especially, to encourage Braille literacy throughout
the state and the nation.”</em></p> <p><em>Love, who was born blind, is in
Miami’s new Inclusive Education program. She wants to teach PK-5 students
who are blind or have low vision.</em></p> <p><em>Ashley Cartell Johnson, clinical
professor of Educational Psychology and coordinator of the Inclusive Education
program, said,</em> <em>“The Inclusive Education major prepares teacher
candidates to teach all learners, including students with disabilities and
multilingual learners, in today’s increasingly diverse classrooms. It is
the first and only program in Ohio to offer a comprehensive and integrated major
that leads to blended licensure in primary general education and K-12 special
education (both mild/moderate and moderate/intensive licenses) and to an endorsement
in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).”</em></p>
<p><em>Cartell Johnson said Love is a</em> <em>“dedicated and passionate
inclusive education teacher candidate. We are confident that MaKenzie will shape,
lead, and define the movement toward inclusive and accessible classrooms that
support and honor all learners.”</em></p> <p><em>Love said she plans to
attend graduate school after earning her bachelor’s degree.</em></p>
<p><em>Love, who made President’s List her first semester, said she’s
having a great experience at Miami.</em> <em>“I absolutely love it here.
I love the friends that I’ve made, and I have met so many wonderful
people.”</em></p> <p><em>She chose Miami because of the education program
in the <a href="https://miamioh.edu/ehs/">College of Education, Health, and
Society</a>.</em> <em>“It really stuck out to me. I loved campus when I
first came to visit,” she said, noting that she enjoys being in the Honors
College and living in an honors residence hall on Western Campus.</em></p> <p><em>Zeb
Baker, dean of the Honors College, said Love is the embodiment of the ‘citizen
scholars’ the Honors College has taken as its mission to produce those who
use their education to advance the common good.</em></p> <p><em>“MaKenzie
is the kind of student who reminds all of us who are fortunate to work with her
why we entered this profession in the first place,” he said.</em>
<em>“Her inexhaustible love of learning and bottomless energy to do as much
good as she possibly can through that learning are an inspiration.”</em></p>
<p><em>Love appreciates having the Center for Student Disability Services and the
AccessMU Center on campus for assistance when students need them. For her, that
ranges from getting materials in Braille and tactile graphics, using assistive
technology, to meeting with her professors in advance</em> <em>“so they
know how best to serve me in class.”</em></p> <p><em>She demonstrated how
she uses the BrailleNote device. She also uses Job Access with Speech (JAWS), a
screen reader designed for blind and low-vision users to navigate computers via
text-to-speech or refreshable Braille displays. It provides full access to
applications, websites, and documents.</em></p> <p><em>Love is able to get around
campus without the aid of a guide dog. She walked from a class in Shideler Hall
to the Armstrong Student Center’s Shade Room for this interview.</em></p>
<p><em>“I think the use of the white cane is absolutely crucial to mobility
and to being able to get around,” she said.</em> <em>“It’s
so important to have those cane skills before you could contemplate getting a
guide dog.”</em></p> <p><em>Love sang “The Star-Spangled Banner”
at a Cleveland Guardians baseball game last July for Disability Awareness Celebration
Night. Now she enjoys being a member of Miami’s Choraliers women’</em><em>s
vocal ensemble.</em></p> <p><em>“It’s a lot of fun. We get to do a
lot of interesting repertoires and a very diverse amount of music,” she
said.</em> <em>“And it’s been great to establish relationships with
other students that love to do the same thing as I do.”</em></p> <p><em>Robyn
Lana, director of the Choraliers, called Love a valuable addition to the
choir.</em></p> <p><em>“She works to learn movement and is open to the help
of colleagues, who are eager to assist because of her ability and desire to do
well.”</em></p> <p><em>While Love uses a Braille reader to learn lyrics
that aren’t available for the musical scores, Lana said Love catches on
very quickly.</em> <em>Lana noted Love was a percussionist in high school and will
be playing a cajon, a box-shaped Peruvian percussion instrument, during this
Friday’</em><em>s concert</em> <em>in Kumler Chapel.</em></p> <p><em>“For
this piece, she will ground the tempo for the entire choir,” Lana said.</em></p>
<p><em>Love also is involved with Navigators, a Christian ministry student
organization on campus, and she is one of the co-founders of the Honors Spanish
Tables for students who want to practice conversational Spanish in the Honors
College.</em></p> <p><em>She started Spanish Tables with Emma Grupe, resident
director of Hillcrest Hall.</em></p> <p><em>“MaKenzie and I were talking
at the beginning of the year, and I had mentioned that I was a Spanish major here
at Miami,” said Grupe, who graduated in 2024 with a bachelor’s in
Anthropology, Spanish, and Linguistics and a master’s in Spanish through
the combined BA/MA program in Spanish.</em></p> <p><em>“She speaks Spanish
as well, so we started chatting in Spanish that day,” Grupe said.</em>
<em>“We discussed the possibility of doing something with Spanish for the
residents of the Honors Residential College, and Honors Spanish Tables were
born.”</em></p> <p><em>Grupe said Love is a wonderful co-host for the
program.</em> <em>“She is such a caring individual, and it shows in her
commitment to her community and the ideas she brings to better it. I’m so
glad to have the opportunity to work with her in this regard.”</em></p>
<p><em>Love said it was gratifying to win last year’s three-day academic
challenge testing students on five fundamental Braille literacy skills: reading
comprehension, spelling, speed and accuracy, proofreading, and interpreting charts
and graphs.</em></p> <p><em>“It was amazing to see how much my work had
paid off because I had practiced really hard,” she said.</em> <em>She first
won the Harley Fetterman Award for Excellence in Charts & Graphs, which she
traditionally considered to be her weakest category.</em> <em>“I was very,
very, very surprised and honored to win,” she said.</em></p> <p><em>Love
learned she won the varsity competition when her name was called.</em></p>
<p><em>“It was very surreal to hear it, but it was also very exciting to
know that Ohio had been represented and that my wonderful teachers and instructors
in high school were there watching online,” she said.</em></p> <p><em>Her
Teachers of Blind Students</em> <em>“got me to that point,” said
Love, who at age five became one of the first students to join the Braille Enrichment
for Literacy and Learning (BELL) Program through the National Federation of the
Blind of Ohio. Love is still involved with the Federation, which she called</em>
<em>“a major part of my journey as a student.”</em></p> <p><em>She
hopes to pay it forward by working with young blind students.</em> <em>“Braille
exposure to individuals at a young age is very important,” she said,</em>
<em>“and I think it’s so important and crucial to emphasize the
learning of Braille and also to learn from blind adult role models as
well.”</em></p> <p>That was the student newspaper’s story about
MaKenzie, and, yes, I know reporters can often generate a lot of fluff, especially
those working for student papers, but MaKenzie is the real deal. I say without a
doubt I am proud to know MaKenzie Love and proud to have her as a member of the
National Federation of the Blind.</p> <p>BELL is right for the sighted as well.
I first met Caroline Karbowski at the 2018 National Convention. She was just
getting to know the organization at the time, and we were just getting to know
her. Since then, she has won a Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award for the work her company
does with 3D printing. In 2019 She volunteered in our BELL Academy and taught our
students how to dissect sharks among other things. On the afternoon the program
began, Caroline and I went shopping for supplies. She wore learning shades and
used her long white cane throughout the shopping trip. One might be tempted to
say she probably used her vision too. From the length of that shopping experience,
I can assure you she didn’t. I sat on a bench at the front of the store
hoping we would make it back to the school before the families started arriving.
Caroline told me that volunteering for BELL has been one of the best learning
experiences she has had as she prepares to teach blind children. Caroline is one
of those rare sighted people of whom we can truly say, “In her heart,
she’s as blind as we are.”</p> <p>In 2019, Emily Keihl also volunteered
to help with our BELL Academy. With encouragement from Caroline, she came to
Columbus as the ball of energy that she is. She was terrific with the kids, and
she quickly picked up on the alternative techniques of blindness that week. Her
growth as a blind person was tremendous. Although she has had a fair amount of
useable vision all of her life, her skills and confidence really began to develop
as a result of her involvement in the BELL Academy. She is now a leader in the
National Federation of the Blind of Ohio. She is also a tenBroek Fellow, which
means she has won two scholarships from the National Federation of the Blind.</p>
<p>Since my involvement with BELL, I have consistently said that this program
benefits everyone who is a part of it, from the youngest child to the oldest adult.
If anyone comes away from the program without learning to do something he or she
has not done before, or without having learned to think about blindness in a more
positive way than before, he or she didn’t leave it all on the field. I
include myself in this as well. I have benefited greatly from working in our BELL
academies, and I know you will too. The BELL Academies that are not already planned
will not happen this summer, but I hope this article helps Federation leaders from
across the nation consider the value of hosting a BELL Academy. I hope that
affiliates that are not running a BELL Academy this year will do all they can to
host one next year. I would be more than happy to assist in any way possible to
help you have BELLs ringing in your affiliate next summer. That’s how much
I believe that next summer BELLs should be ringing everywhere.</p> <p>----------</p>
<p>[PHOTO CAPTION: Justin Salisbury]</p> <h2 id="eye-condition-twins-a-double-edged-sword">Eye
Condition Twins: A Double-Edged Sword</h2> <p>by Justin Salisbury</p> <p>Sometimes
blind people with the same eye condition will refer to themselves as “twins”
in some way. The most common way that I seem to hear it is “eye condition
twins.” In my experience, this is usually done in a positive, playful
manner. I support the idea of blind people forming bonds with each other, but
something about bonding over having the same eye condition has always seemed
problematic to me, even when I could not quite put my finger on why. As I try to
grapple with this concept, I hope that readers of the <em>Braille Monitor</em>
will consider engaging in a conversation about the idea of eye condition twins
and its drawbacks, as well as some of its benefits.</p> <p>I remember being newly
blind as a sophomore in high school and the process of looking for other people
who shared the same medical conditions that caused my blindness. My top focus was
figuring out how to succeed in the academic and social parts of school, and I was
not interested in identifying with other blind people yet. I wanted to be remembered
as the competitive student and athlete that I had been before that point, and
grouping myself with other blind people seemed like an ineffective way to maintain
that status. I would now discourage any other blind people from taking that
attitude, but that was what I did at the time.</p> <p>During the summer, I attended
some residential high school youth programs at a training center for the blind.
In my first program, which aimed to help youth transition to adulthood, we had a
series of classes on a daily schedule, including Braille, orientation and mobility
(which did not necessarily include using a cane), individual counseling, group
counseling, and a few other things. We did not have classmates in the individual
counseling class because that was where the counselor would walk us through the
stages of grief and loss to deal with our blindness. In the classes where we had
classmates, we were paired with other students who had similar levels of functional
vision so that we could discuss similar techniques to accomplish tasks, maximizing
the use of our residual vision. I do not recommend this clustering strategy, but
it happened. Whether or not the program designers intended this, I found that I
ended up bonding more with the students who had similar levels of residual vision,
and I bonded less with the ones who did not. This was partly facilitated by the
clustering of classmates, but I suspect that I would have taken this approach
anyway, since I felt like my level of residual vision was such an important and
defining feature of my own life. I wish that my training program had known better
than to follow the same beliefs about blindness that I had as a newly blind
teenager, but we cannot go back in time.</p> <p>I noticed that some of the other
students who shared the same eye conditions seemed to bond over that eye condition,
and I think it was in that summer program that I first heard blind people referring
to themselves as twins. At some level, I think this comes from the early conversations
that we have with the eye doctors who tell us that we are blind or going blind.
Eye doctors have a tendency to tell people that they have a rare eye condition,
which is true when we are compared to the general population of the country or
world. But once you get into the blind community, some of those eye conditions
are quite common. For example, I have heard people start off by saying that they
have this super-rare eye condition, eventually naming it as retinitis pigmentosa,
only to find that about forty percent of the people in the room share that eye
condition. I remember seeing those other blind kids finding their twins and feeling
a bit left out when I didn’t have a twin myself.</p> <p>Consider a conversation
like this:</p> <p>Person 1: Oh my gosh, you have Stargardt’s?</p> <p>Person
2: Yes, I do.</p> <p>Person 1: Wow, that’s so cool! I have Stargardt’s,
too! We are twins! I’ve never met anyone else like me.</p> <p>Person 2: Me
neither! It’s so nice to finally find another person who understands me!</p>
<p>It took until I was in college to finally meet anyone with the same eye condition
as me—and become aware that this was the case—but then that person
still did not have a similar amount of functional vision as I did. That still did
not seem to count as a twin. I think I was a graduate student at Louisiana Tech
University, in my master’s degree program to become a cane travel instructor,
before I finally met another person who could be my eye condition twin. By that
point, I had stopped caring about the search. There were way too many other ways
to bond with other blind people to worry about finding my eye condition twin. Here
are a few of those other bonding strategies and examples of why I believe the
“twin” approach can be problematic.</p> <p>If we wait until we find
someone with our exact same eye condition to trust that another blind person might
share similar experiences with us, we might miss out on the opportunity to bond
with a whole lot of blind people who could have much to offer us. One of the
biggest ways that I started bonding with other blind people was through student
division programming and scholarship programs at the state and national levels of
the National Federation of the Blind. One of the biggest factors that helped us
bond was shared academic or career interests. If I had waited to trust someone
until I found someone with exactly my eye condition, I would have waited far too
long.</p> <p>The majority of the problems that we face as blind people are not
automatic consequences of blindness; instead, they are consequences of living in
a society that is designed based on sightedness. In our society, the dominant
group whose needs and ways are prioritized are the sighted people. The people who
fall outside that group share a common experience of our needs being treated as
if they exist only in the margins. The margins have been set in ways that create
a barrier that keeps blind people on the outside. As we work, collectively and
individually, to get past those barriers, we learn things and make progress in
ways that benefit everyone else who is kept in the margins like we are. Everyone
who shares this common experience of marginalization can work together as one
blind community to make the world more welcoming for us.</p> <p>This is not to
say that focusing on our medical conditions is never appropriate. I can easily
imagine circumstances in which our medical conditions may lead to certain kinds
of barriers that we may face that other blind people do not. For example, some
eye conditions cause extreme sensitivity to bright lights, leading people to wear
dark sunglasses or hats to minimize discomfort. Some people in our society look
down upon those who wear hats or sunglasses. When they have influence over spaces,
they may work to set rules, customs, or norms that make people wearing hats or
sunglasses unwelcome. People who navigate this barrier may share kinship over
shared experiences and be able to support each other in many ways. This is a way
that specific ableist societal forces can corral together people with a specific
medical condition.</p> <p>While our level or quality of eyesight should not matter
and does not make us any less of a blind person, it can relate to specific kinds
of ableist microaggressions that we face. At the time of writing and for the past
twenty-one years, I have had a significant amount of residual vision, with pretty
good acuity but a narrow visual field. Some people call this “tunnel
vision.” I often find that sighted people think that I am faking being
blind because I am making good eye contact or reading the sign of a big-box store
from across a parking lot. If they do not think I am faking blindness, they may
assume that I can see more than I can and expect me to access visual information
that I am not receiving. For example, they may try to hand me a printed form that
I am supposed to complete visually with a pen, which I cannot do. A legislator
may walk by me in the hallway and think that I am rude for not acknowledging them,
when I never even knew that they were there, only to find me in their office
moments later, looking them in the eye and asking for their support on a bill.</p>
<p>If they are less willing to support that bill because of what they assumed I
saw in the hallway, we all suffer. People with no light perception do not experience
these same microaggressions in the exact same way. Different groups within the
blind community receive their own special casserole of microaggressions, but it
is also essential that we work together to combat all forms of ableism against
the blind, even if we personally are not part of that subgroup. Nonetheless, there
is a way that these shared experiences with special forms of ableism can create
some kinship among those smaller groups. Our eye condition twins may belong to
the same smaller group as we do.</p> <p>Overall, I believe that the idea of eye
condition twins can be productive in some short-term ways, but I suspect that each
blind person needs to progress to a point where we no longer feel emotionally
invested in it. Dr. Jernigan gave us a model of three stages of independence: fear
and insecurity (FI), rebellious independence (RI), and normal independence (NI).
In the early stage of fear and insecurity, the idea of eye condition twins may
lead us to feel comfort and acceptance at a time when we may find it difficult to
feel comfort and acceptance from other sources. Finding a twin may create a bridge
to help us to get connected with a broader blind community and perhaps a local
chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. Our twin might get us in the
door. If someone learns that I am their eye condition twin and feels a sense of
safety, comfort, or understanding with me because of it, I would probably try to
treat that as a good thing and help introduce them to additional blind friends
and spaces that may help broaden their comfort zone. Eventually, when we get to
normal independence, I suspect that we no longer feel the unique kind of emptiness
that can only be filled by an eye condition twin. In the phase of normal independence,
the eye condition twin is no longer so important to us, but we may be able to be
a bridge for others who think of us that way.</p> <p>Sometimes blind people became
blind because of some other medical condition, where blindness was just one
consequence. For example, diabetes causes many effects, and blindness can be one
of them. In the National Federation of the Blind, we have a division for blind
people who also have diabetes, and I think this is a good thing. For a blind person
who has diabetes, connecting with other people who have diabetes can lead to
sharing tips and strategies for how to manage diabetes as a blind person, such as
by using talking glucometers and learning adaptive techniques as blind people with
the complicating factor of diabetes. For example, I have heard blind diabetics
share strategies for dealing with neuropathy in their hands while learning to read
Braille or increasing their reading speed. These are great things, and these other
intersecting medical conditions are not the type of twins that I am proposing that
we should perhaps consider problematic.</p> <p>When I think about the ways that
I intentionally bond with other blind people, I think it should not be centered
around my eye condition. I am much more complex than my eye condition, and my eye
condition is a relatively insignificant part of who I am. My identity as a blind
person is, by contrast, a significant part of who I am. My eye condition and my
identity as a blind person are two very different things. If we think that we can
fit in or belong once we find someone who shares our eye condition, then we also
reinforce an idea for ourselves that, when we are in places where nobody shares
our eye condition, we do not belong. This means that, in most spaces in this world,
we will not belong. That can be a dangerous downside to settling into a sense of
comfort based on shared eye conditions. In the National Federation of the Blind,
we consistently reject the notion that the most important part of blindness is a
medical condition; instead, the marginalization of blind people in society and
how we deal with that marginalization are much more important. If a newly blind
person is willing to connect with me because I share their eye condition, I am
happy to connect with them. I simply never make my eye condition the pitch for
why anyone should trust me or bond with me. I do not want to reinforce the common
ableist idea that a person’s eye condition is a central part of who they
are.</p> <p>----------</p> <p>[PHOTO CAPTION: Sandy Halverson]</p> <h2
id="of-seniors-and-seeds">Of Seniors and Seeds</h2> <p>by Sandy Halverson</p>
<p>Our National Federation of the Blind message has always been one of hope,
support, love, and planting seeds to raise the low expectations, based on
misconceptions and stereotypes, about our perceived limitations. Many of us have
transitioned throughout our lives within this community, starting as blind students
supporting and problem-solving with each other, then connecting with blind and
sighted parents providing guidance to their children and, ultimately, the push to
leave the nest for higher education or employment. Eventually we reach retirement
to pursue leisure activities or other interests, navigating health issues and
complex bureaucratic systems. But when we find ourselves at an impasse created by
a lack of access to information or the fear of what might lie ahead, we once again
seek those like us who can show us how to live the lives we want. Our National
Federation of the Blind Seniors Division was formed to meet the needs of both our
longtime Federation family members and those newly blind older adults who lost
sight from various eye conditions such as strokes and diabetes and who are coming
to our movement for the first time.</p> <p>We began by planning and executing
programs for blind and low-vision seniors seeking information about hearing aids,
downsizing, choosing a retirement living community, and methods to appropriately
label and monitor medications. After the pandemic brought the Zoom platform into
our lives, our division board proposed conducting an annual virtual seniors retreat,
and we want <em>Braille Monitor</em> readers to know about this program and help
us spread the word. Participants have been recruited by listserv announcements
and word of mouth for the past few years, but next year registration information
will be disseminated earlier and more widely to reach others who need to know
about us and what we offer. In the meantime, here’s a recap of our most
recent retreat to build anticipation and provide a preview of what to expect.</p>
<p>This year, our virtual retreat began with a meet-and-greet on Sunday, February
8 and concluded with a wrap-up on Saturday, February 14, 2026. We had thirty-two
participants from thirteen states. We were delighted that President Riccobono
joined us to recognize our lived experiences, express his gratitude for the many
ways in which we contribute to the work of the National Federation of the Blind,
and look forward to being an active member of our division at a later point in
his life.</p> <p>We devoted an hour each day introducing participants to nonvisual
techniques beginning with cane travel, home management and independent living
skills, technology, and general information sessions. Cane travel instruction is
coordinated by Duncan Larsen, our treasurer, whose career was teaching cane travel
for many years in addition to coordinating senior programs at the Colorado Center
for the Blind (CCB). Orientation and mobility staff from that Federation training
center, all of who were blind, taught some of the sessions, with topics covering
cane basics from length to tip, indoor and outdoor navigation, stowing a cane in
a variety of situations, using a cane with a walker or wheelchair, crossing a
variety of intersections, cardinal directions, and answering questions from our
participants. It was made clear that these instructions will get you started but
building self-confidence requires a lot of practice and working with individuals
who know that our methods yield success.</p> <p>Jane Degenshine, one of our division
board members, brought high energy and much enthusiasm to our daily one-hour
technology classes. Presentations she scheduled included demonstrations of
NFB-NEWSLINE®, NLS BARD, iOS apps with VoiceOver, kitchen high- and low-tech
methods, and a variety of Alexa skills. I find home management conversation topics
that propose solutions for organizing personal documents, kitchen safety, and
accessing information to accomplish those tasks most helpful, but we also are
often faced with medical condition considerations such as severe hearing loss for
which cochlear implants might be an appropriate remedy if hearing aids are not
effective.</p> <p>We invited one of our NFB of South Carolina members to tell us
how, after several years of poor service delivery from the South Carolina Commission
for the Blind, he obtained support from that agency to attend the Louisiana Center
for the Blind, one of our Federation training centers, and now has the self-confidence
afforded by such positive blindness skills training to pursue employment. We were
fortunate to learn about birding from Donna Posont, a Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award
winner, who inspired us with her knowledge of a wide range of bird sounds and
enthusiasm for nonvisual exploration of our natural environment.</p> <p>Our
president, Glenn Crosby, has wonderful community connections who taught us how to
shop for anything we are seeking, make do-it-yourself home repairs using nonvisual
techniques, and use methods for medication identification and management. We were
delighted and inspired by a conversation with Jonathan Mosen, who shared details
about his mother’s resistance to technology and his approach to her gradual
acceptance of that same technology to allow her to maintain contact with her
grandchildren and her children. Jonathan stressed the importance of determining
what each of us wants to do and then identifying the most efficient device or
devices for those tasks.</p> <p>Our five-hour Zoom meetings have an hour between
the second and third classes for topics not covered elsewhere: getting our families
to accept and respect our nonvisual methods, strategies for church and community
involvement, and just fun banter. Judy Sanders, our vice-president, moderates this
session and keeps the rest of our schedule running smoothly.</p> <p>One of our
participants who had been working with her state agency for blindness services
and had identified her need to learn how to use her iPhone, was ecstatic to learn
about VoiceOver and, during the course of one evening, figured out how to read
email and text using that powerful iOS screen reader. Several participants are
planning to attend our upcoming national convention and are looking forward to
our division activities and an opportunity to join us for a meal.</p> <p>We agree
that hands-on teaching is the best, but virtually we are able to reach seniors
throughout the country who clearly need to be a part of our family, learn how they
can control their lives in ways they never thought possible, and be introduced to
nonvisual techniques for all aspects of life. Several participants expressed
interest in joining local chapters and are beginning to make those in-person
connections that will bring them more fully into our family. We will continue
sharing the hope, love, and true gift of the National Federation of the Blind.</p>
<p>----------</p> <p>[PHOTO CAPTION: Gary Wunder]</p> <h2
id="the-golden-rule-the-platinum-rule-and-the-right-to-speak-for-ourselves">The
Golden Rule, the Platinum Rule, and the Right to Speak for Ourselves</h2> <p>by
Gary Wunder</p> <p>The Golden Rule is one of the most beautiful moral teachings
ever given to humanity: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.” It is simple, memorable, and powerful. It calls us away from selfishness
and toward sympathy. It asks us to imagine ourselves in the place of another person
and then act with the kindness, fairness, and mercy we would want if the situation
were reversed.</p> <p>There is a reason the rule is called golden. It shines. It
reminds us that other people are not obstacles, tools, cases, problems, or projects.
They are people. They have feelings. They have hopes. They have fears. They can
be hurt. They can be encouraged. They can be respected or dismissed. The Golden
Rule asks us to begin with this basic truth: I should not treat another person in
a way that I would regard as cruel, degrading, dishonest, or dismissive if it were
done to me.</p> <p>For this reason, nothing in this article should be read as an
attack on the Golden Rule. The world would be far better if more of us lived by
it. Public life would be kinder. Families would be stronger. Workplaces would be
more decent. Schools and other public institutions would be more humane. The Golden
Rule has restrained many a cruel impulse and inspired many an act of generosity.
It deserves our respect.</p> <p>But there is another rule, sometimes called the
Platinum Rule: do unto others as they would have you do unto them. Its purpose is
not to replace the Golden Rule but to carry it further. The Golden Rule charges
me to look within myself and ask, “How would I want to be treated?”
The Platinum Rule charges me to look beyond myself and ask, “How does this
person want to be treated?” It requires not only sympathy but curiosity.
It requires not only kindness but humility. It requires not only a good heart but
a willingness to listen.</p> <p>This distinction matters deeply in the lives of
blind people. A sighted person who lives by the Golden Rule may sincerely want to
help. That person may say, “If I were blind, I would want someone to take
my arm, lead me across the street, order for me in the restaurant, tell me where
to sit, explain what I cannot do, and protect me from embarrassment.” These
impulses may come from kindness. They may be rooted in a desire to prevent danger
or discomfort. But they may also be rooted in misunderstanding. The sighted person
is imagining blindness from the outside. They are asking, “What would
frighten me if I suddenly could not see?” That is not the same as asking,
“What does this blind person know, want, need, and prefer?”</p>
<p>This is where the Platinum Rule becomes especially valuable. It says: do not
merely imagine yourself as blind and then act from that imagined fear. Get to know
blind people. Ask us. Listen to us. Learn from our experience. Understand that
blindness is not a costume sighted people can put on for an hour and then understand.
Real curiosity demands fuller answers than a temporary simulation can provide.</p>
<p>Blindness is not best understood by closing one’s eyes and trying to
cross a room. It is understood by listening to people who live with blindness
every day. It is understood by learning from blind people who work, raise families,
travel, read, cook, teach, lead, worship, vote, love, argue, build, and contribute.
It is understood by recognizing that we are not symbols of tragedy, courage,
helplessness, or inspiration. We are human beings.</p> <p>There is a familiar
saying about walking a mile in another person’s shoes. It is meant to
encourage empathy, and in that sense it is useful. But we should be honest about
its limits. We can never fully walk a mile in another person’s shoes. At
best we can listen, observe, learn, and be changed by what the other person tells
us. Otherwise, taking another’s shoes only leaves them without shoes and
with a mile of distance between us.</p> <p>Blind people do not need the public to
pretend to be blind for a day and then announce what blindness means. We need
people to listen to those who live with blindness every day. We need people to
understand that the meaning of blindness is not best defined by fear, pity, or
cinematic imagination. It is best understood through the lived experience of blind
people themselves.</p> <p>This is why the philosophy of the National Federation
of the Blind matters. We are not an organization speaking for the blind from the
outside. We are the blind speaking for ourselves. When we say that we are the
voice of the nation’s blind, we do not mean that every blind person thinks
exactly alike. No group of human beings does. We mean that blind people must be
central in defining what we need, what we want, and what kind of future we intend
to build.</p> <p>This principle does not reject help from sighted people. Far from
it. Blind people want and need allies, friends, teachers, employers, family members,
public officials, readers, drivers, technology developers, and neighbors. We need
people who care enough to stand with us. We need people who will use their influence
when it can help open doors. We need people who will read a document; describe a
picture; offer transportation; support sound public policy; and make room for us
in schools, workplaces, churches, and civic life.</p> <p>But help must not become
control. Assistance must not become ownership. Friendship must not become management.
The Golden Rule may move a sighted person to offer help. The Platinum Rule teaches
that the help should be shaped by what the blind person says is helpful.</p>
<p>There is a difference between saying, “May I help you?” and
seizing someone’s arm. There is a difference between saying, “Would
you like me to read the menu?” and ordering for someone without asking.
There is a difference between saying, “The empty chair is two steps to your
left,” and pushing someone into it. There is a difference between making
information accessible and deciding that a blind person need not have the information
at all. The first approach respects the person. The second approach treats the
person as an object of custodial care, or worse, of neglect justified as realism.</p>
<p>This distinction matters beyond social courtesy. It affects education, employment,
transportation, technology, rehabilitation, and public policy. If sighted people
decide what blind people need without listening to blind people, even good intentions
can produce bad systems. Schools may protect a blind child from ordinary
responsibilities and call it compassion. Potential employers may assume that
blindness means inability, call it realism, and spare the blind person not only
from failure, as they intend, but also from success, which they consider impossible.
Public agencies may provide services that keep blind people dependent and call it
care. Technology companies may build inaccessible products and call blind people
a small market. In each case, people may believe they are being reasonable. Some
may even believe they are being kind. But kindness that refuses to listen is still
a barrier.</p> <p>Federation philosophy challenges this. We know that blindness
is not the characteristic that defines our future. We know that low expectations
create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. This is not a denial that
blindness has practical consequences. Blindness changes how we read, travel, gather
information, and perform many tasks. But it does not reduce us to helplessness.
With proper training, opportunity, accessible tools, and public attitudes that
make room for our competence, we who are blind can live full and meaningful
lives.</p> <p>This is why the Platinum Rule is not merely a matter of politeness.
It is a matter of justice. If you assume that I need what you would need if you
suddenly lost your sight, you may offer me pity when I need opportunity. You may
offer protection when I need training. You may offer charity when I need a job.
You may offer a handout when I need a chance to give. You may offer sympathy when
I need respect.</p> <p>Blind people do not want to be cast permanently as receivers.
We want to be givers. We want to serve on boards, raise children, pay taxes, teach
classes, run businesses, lead organizations, comfort friends, solve problems, and
contribute to our communities. Sometimes we need assistance, as everyone does.
But needing assistance in some circumstances is not the same as being needy as an
identity. Every human being is dependent in some way. The question is whether
dependence is treated as a mutual part of human life or as a reason to lower
expectations.</p> <p>The Golden Rule can help sighted people begin the journey.
“If I were treated with contempt, I would be hurt, so I should not treat
blind people with contempt. If I would want access to information, I should support
access for blind people. If I would want the chance to work, I should not deny
that chance to someone else.” This is a worthy beginning.</p> <p>The Platinum
Rule asks for the next step: “Let me learn what blind people themselves
say about blindness. Let me listen when they say that pity is not respect. Let me
believe them when they say that low expectations hurt more than the absence of
eyesight. Let me understand that help is best when it is requested, negotiated,
and respectful. Let me recognize that blind people are not all alike and that one
blind person may want assistance that another does not. Let me ask rather than
assume.”</p> <p>This approach also requires blind people to speak. We cannot
demand that others listen if we are unwilling to explain. We must say what we need
in public policy and in personal interaction. We must teach the public when the
public misunderstands us. We must elect leaders, build our organization, write
articles, testify before legislatures, mentor one another, and speak directly in
the situations of daily life. The right to speak for ourselves carries with it
the responsibility to speak clearly, honestly, and with enough patience to change
minds. We must not make the public a victim of our preconceived notions of who
they are but practice the Platinum Rule with as much vigor as we wish to benefit
from it.</p> <p>Of course, the public must be willing to receive what we say.
Listening is more than hearing words. A person can hear a blind person say,
“I can do this,” and still think, “That is brave, but not
realistic.” A person can hear us say, “We want opportunity,”
and still think, “Of course they say that, but they are very limited.”
A person can hear us say, “Blindness is not the tragedy you imagine,”
and still hold tightly to the assumption that blindness must be a life of sadness,
dependence, and diminished humanity.</p> <p>That kind of listening is not listening
with both the head and the heart. The head is needed to understand the argument.
The heart is needed to accept its legitimacy. The head may follow the logic that
training, opportunity, and access make a difference. The heart must be willing to
let go of pity as the central response to blindness. The head may understand that
blind people can use canes, Braille, screen readers, guide dogs, Structured
Discovery training, and other tools. The heart must be willing to believe that a
blind life can be a full life.</p> <p>This is where attitudes matter. In the
Federation we have long understood that the real problem of blindness is not the
physical absence of sight but the misunderstandings and low expectations that
surround it. We believe blind people have value, and we act to enhance that value
and bring sighted people to recognize it. That work requires both blind and sighted
people to change. Blind people must reject the limitations imposed by fear and
low expectations. Sighted people must reject the assumption that they already know
what blindness means.</p> <p>The Platinum Rule is useful because it reminds us
that love must learn. Respect must listen. Generosity must be guided by the person
receiving it. The question is not only, “Would I want someone to help
me?” The question is also, “What kind of help does this person want?
What kind of help preserves dignity? What kind of help opens doors rather than
closing them? What kind of help allows this person to become more free?”</p>
<p>A blind person standing at a street corner may want assistance crossing. They
may not. A blind student may need a book in an accessible format, not a reduced
assignment. A blind employee may need accessible software, not a reassignment to
fewer duties or less responsibility. A blind traveler may need accurate directions,
not someone grabbing his suitcase. A blind voter may need a private and independent
way to mark a ballot, not someone else deciding that marking their ballot for them
is good enough. A blind child may need Braille, cane travel, high expectations,
and chores at home, not sentimental protection from ordinary life.</p> <p>The same
principle applies to organized advocacy. When blind people speak collectively
through the National Federation of the Blind, we are not being ungrateful for the
help of sighted people. We are exercising the basic human right to define our own
needs. Public officials, educators, employers, and service providers should welcome
this. They should want policy shaped by those who live with its consequences. They
should want programs tested against real experience. They should want blind people
at the table: not as decoration, not as testimony after the decision has already
been made, but as a dominant force in deciding what the decision should be.</p>
<p>Good intentions are a wonderful starting point. They are not the destination.
A person may intend kindness and still block a doorway. A teacher may intend
protection and still deny a child literacy. An employer may intend fairness and
still never interview a qualified blind applicant. A public official may intend
efficiency and still create a process blind people cannot use. Intention matters,
but results matter too. The Golden Rule may purify our intentions. The Platinum
Rule is more likely to improve our results.</p> <p>So let us keep the Golden Rule.
Let us honor it. Let us teach it to our children. Let us practice its call to
decency, sympathy, and fairness. But let us also understand that the Golden Rule
reaches its fullest expression when it leads us to the Platinum Rule. If I truly
want to treat others as I would want to be treated, then I should want others to
learn who I am before deciding what I need. I should want them to ask, listen,
and respect my answer. I should want them to see me as a person, not as a
category.</p> <p>That is what we ask. See us as human beings. Listen to us as
people with knowledge. Help when help is wanted. Step back when independence is
called for. Join us when justice requires collective action. Do not make blindness
smaller than it is by pretending it has no consequences, but do not make it larger
than it is by turning it into the defining fact of our existence.</p> <p>The Golden
Rule says, “I will remember that you are like me.” The Platinum Rule
says, “I will also remember that you are not me.” Both truths matter.
We share a common humanity, and we live that humanity in different circumstances.
The best relationships honor both.</p> <p>For blind people, this means that the
public must move beyond pity to partnership, beyond assumption to understanding,
beyond charity to opportunity, and beyond speaking for us to listening when we
speak for ourselves. That is not a rejection of the Golden Rule. It is its flowering.
It is the Golden Rule made more careful, more humble, and more effective.</p>
<p>And if we can live there—where kindness listens, where help respects,
where blind people define our own needs, and where sighted people join us as
partners rather than managers—we will have moved closer to the world both
rules are trying to build: a world in which every person is treated not as we
imagine them to be, but as they truly are.</p> <p>----------</p> <p>[PHOTO CAPTION:
Cynthia gets O&M instruction from Jimmy Morris.]</p> <h2
id="trainers-committee-for-structured-discovery-a-name-change-reflecting-expanded-mission-and-professional-impact">Trainers
Committee for Structured Discovery: A Name Change Reflecting Expanded Mission and
Professional Impact</h2> <p>by Jimmy Morris, M.A., NOMCT</p> <p><strong>From the
Editor: The author is chair of the Trainers Committee for Structured Discovery of
the National Blindness Professional Certification Board.</strong></p> <p>Within
the organized blind movement, the concept of Structured Discovery is well-known
to be the pillar of excellence and high quality non-visual training grounded in
a positive philosophy of blind people. Structured Discovery is a teaching methodology
trademarked, developed, and overseen by the National Blindness Professional
Certification Board (NBPCB), and this professional organization has historically
maintained a strong partnership with the National Federation of the Blind due to
their aligned belief in the blind.</p> <p>An important development within the
NBPCB reflects both institutional growth and a continued commitment to professional
advancement within. The committee formerly known as the National Orientation &
Mobility Certification Trainers committee (NOMCT) has adopted a new name: the
Trainers Committee for Structured Discovery (TCSD), a committee of the NBPCB.</p>
<p>This change is not cosmetic. It reflects an evolution in scope, responsibility,
and direction as we align our work with the full range of certifications administered
by the NBPCB.</p> <h3 id="a-name-that-matches-our-work">A Name That Matches Our
Work</h3> <p>In recent years, our efforts have expanded beyond supporting orientation
and mobility certification alone. We now contribute to initiatives affecting all
NBPCB credentials, including:</p> <ul> <li><p>National Orientation Mobility
Certification (NOMC)</p></li> <li><p>National Certification in Rehabilitation
Teaching for the Blind (NCRTB)</p></li> <li><p>National Certification in Access
Technology for the Blind (NCATB)</p></li> </ul> <p>By adopting the name Trainers
Committee for Structured Discovery, we acknowledge our broader responsibility: to
develop training practices, projects, and strategic initiatives that strengthen
professionals across all Structured Discovery disciplines.</p> <h3
id="structured-discovery-as-a-professional-foundation">Structured Discovery as a
Professional Foundation</h3> <p>NBPCB certification programs are grounded in
Structured Discovery training methods, which draw on cognitive learning principles
and consumer-driven expectations. This perspective differs fundamentally from
traditional models; it encourages active exploration, problem-solving, and
self-directed strategy development. Our mandate is to advance professional excellence
while promoting the conviction that blindness itself is not a barrier to achievement.
To accomplish this, the TCSD operates through three primary pillars: Recruitment,
Education, and Mentoring.</p> <h3
id="strengthening-the-pipeline-through-recruitment-and-outreach">Strengthening
the Pipeline through Recruitment and Outreach</h3> <p>A vital component of our
mission is ensuring a steady influx of talented individuals into the field. The
Recruitment Subcommittee works tirelessly to spread the word about NBPCB certifications
and the pathways to obtaining them through graduate school or apprenticeship
programs. By demystifying the process for future instructors, we ensure the
longevity of our profession. Recent initiatives include:</p> <ul> <li><p>Resource
Development: Creating a comprehensive and concise flyer and information sheet
detailing pathways to NBPCB Certification.</p></li> <li><p>Active Presence: Includes
tables at multiple National Federation of the Blind state conventions and career
fairs.</p></li> <li><p>Diverse Collaboration: Partnering with the National
Organization of Blind Black Leaders to host panel discussions highlighting the
success of Structured Discovery professionals of color, ensuring our recruitment
efforts are inclusive and representative.</p></li> </ul> <h3
id="education-committee-expands-professional-development">Education Committee
Expands Professional Development</h3> <p>In line with recruitment, our Education
Subcommittee focuses on equipping current practitioners with the knowledge and
ethical grounding necessary for modern instructional environments. Since 2025,
more than 500 participants have engaged in these offerings, which include:</p>
<ul> <li><p>Targeted sessions on Structured Discovery philosophy and instructional
best practices.</p></li> <li><p>Extended discussions addressing workplace ethics
and professional responsibility.</p></li> <li><p>A five-part disability training
series designed to deepen cultural understanding.</p></li> </ul> <h3
id="mentoring-initiative-solidifies-professional-identity">Mentoring Initiative
Solidifies Professional Identity</h3> <p>Once recruited and educated, professionals
must be supported. Our Mentoring Subcommittee launched a program in November 2025
that pairs experienced practitioners with newcomers. This initiative transfers
institutional knowledge and reinforces philosophical consistency. By building
these relationships, we reduce isolation among early-career practitioners and
build collaborative networks that benefit the field as a whole.</p> <h3
id="implications-for-the-field">Implications for the Field</h3> <p>Taken together,
the committee’s name change and the coordinated efforts of our subcommittees
signal a new era of professional standards. These developments provide:</p> <ul>
<li><p>Unified Identity: Aligning under the TCSD name clarifies our role across
all certifications.</p></li> <li><p>Leadership Cultivation: Recruitment and
mentoring develop confident, philosophically grounded professionals.</p></li>
<li><p>Elevated Standards: Expanded education improves instructional quality and
ethical accountability.</p></li> </ul> <p>We are positioning ourselves not merely
as a support body for credentials, but as an active contributor to professional
culture. Our trajectory reflects a continued commitment to building capacity while
maintaining fidelity to the core philosophy of Structured Discovery.</p>
<p>Practitioners, prospective certificants, and those interested in mentoring
opportunities may direct inquiries or suggestions to Committee Chair Jimmy
Morris, Trainers Committee for Structured Discovery at: <a
href="mailto:jimorris0116@gmail.com">jimorris0116@gmail.com</a>.</p> <p>----------</p>
<h2 id="monitor-miniatures"><em>Monitor</em> Miniatures</h2> <h3
id="news-from-the-federation-family">News from the Federation Family </h3> <h4
id="florida-federation-chapter-providing-meta-ai-smart-glasses">Florida Federation
Chapter Providing Meta AI Smart Glasses</h4> <p>The greater Jacksonville Chapter
of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida is administering a generous
grant from the Rotary Club of Julington Creek—Bartram Trail. The grant
enables blind residents in Duval or St. Johns Counties to receive a pair of the
Meta Smart Glasses. The grant covers seventy-five percent of the cost and also
includes training courtesy of The Magnification Company if requested by the
recipient. The blind person covers twenty-five percent of the cost if they choose
the Meta Ray Bans or the difference if they choose to order the Vanguard Oakley
Glasses instead. The total amount of the grant is $6,000. At the time of this
writing there have been sixteen pairs of glasses awarded to recipients by a
committee consisting of members of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida
Greater Jacksonville Chapter.</p> <h3 id="in-brief">In Brief</h3> <p><strong>Notices
and information in this section may be of interest to Monitor readers. We are not
responsible for the accuracy of the information; we have edited only for space
and clarity.</strong></p> <h4 id="ski-for-light-to-rendezvous-in-west-yellowstone">Ski
for Light to Rendezvous in West Yellowstone </h4> <p>The secret is out! Ski for
Light, Inc. (SFL) will celebrate its fifty-second international week in West
Yellowstone, Montana, where active adults who are blind or have mobility impairments
will gather to learn the basics of cross-country skiing from January 17- 24,
2027.</p> <p>“West Yellowstone is a perfect skiing venue for the 2027 Ski
for Light International event.</p> <p>The terrain includes long flat areas that
will be perfect for beginners as well as hills that will challenge and thrill more
advanced skiers.”</p> <p>Each participant is paired with an experienced,
sighted cross-country skier who acts as an instructor and an on-snow guide for a
week of skiing, sharing, and learning. First time skiers will be introduced to
basic technique, while returning skiers will have an opportunity to enhance existing
skills.</p> <p>Founded in 1975, Ski for Light is an all-volunteer nonprofit. While
the focus of the week is cross-country skiing, there are plenty of after ski
activities where participants have an opportunity to catch up with old friends
and make new ones.</p> <p>Join participants from across the US and around the
world. Applications and additional information will be available in July at <a
href="http://www.sfl.org">www.sfl.org</a>; meanwhile, join our community on Facebook
(Ski for Light, Inc.), and check out our YouTube channel (Ski for Light
International).</p> <p>----------</p> <h2 id="nfb-pledge">NFB Pledge</h2> <p>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.</p>
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