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May 21, 2008 Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jonathan Simeone
THAT U.S. CURRENCY MUST BE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL AMERICANS
Seattle, Washington, May 21, 2008—The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a prior judicial ruling that the design of U.S. paper money denies blind people meaningful access came as welcome news to OurMoneyToo, a group of blind and sighted volunteers who came together four years ago to seek allies in Congress and raise public awareness about the issue.
"This ruling brings us one step closer to the day when blind and visually impaired Americans will be able to handle U.S. paper money as safely and independently as our sighted peers do," said Jonathan Simeone, a totally blind attorney living in Seattle.
"The current design of paper money springs from the world of the sighted," Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote in her May 20 opinion. "Upon casual inspection anyone with good vision can readily discern the value of U.S. currency; yet even the most searching tactile examination will reveal no difference between a $100 bill and a $1 bill." Although some have argued that blind and visually impaired Americans already do have meaningful access to the benefits of using currency because we already do use paper money (with the assistance of sighted people or expensive, unreliable electronic devices), Judge Rogers saw things differently: "Where the plaintiffs identify an obstacle that impedes their access to a government program or benefit, they likely have established that they lack meaningful access to the program or benefit."
The opinion went on to describe those obstacles in more concrete terms. "Where the basic task of independently evaluating the worth of currency in excess of 99 cents is difficult or impossible, the visually impaired are forever relegated to depend on 'the kindness of strangers' to shop for groceries, hire a taxi, or buy a newspaper or cup of coffee."
Furthermore, Judge Rogers noted that the Treasury Department's failure to produce currency that can be independently identified by blind and visually impaired Americans was an example of the very "thoughtlessness and indifference" that Congress sought to prevent when it subjected the federal government to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in federal government programs.
From the outset OurMoneyToo has not been asking that government spend exorbitant amounts of money to make U.S. currency useable by all Americans. Nor have we argued that the currency should be altered to provide blind and visually impaired Americans an added benefit from using currency that is not already provided to sighted Americans through our existing form of currency. From the start our goal has been to support the premise that cash is such a fundamental part of American life that it must be something that all Americans can use safely and independently.
The Treasury claims that changing U.S. currency would be too costly, but Judge Rogers correctly observed that the costs would be of "a similar magnitude to the costs of recent paper currency redesigns." The costs can be reduced even further if the changes are made as part of the regular currency redesigns conducted every few years to deter counterfeiting.
"Accessible" paper currency will also benefit sighted people. Alison Roberts, a sighted member of OurMoneyToo, recalls, "I've almost mixed up those 'new' $10's and $20's many times—but I always catch the mistake before it goes too far, so like most sighted people, I never really thought about how annoying our paper money is. But if you travel abroad or talk to someone from pretty much any other country on earth, you start to wonder why we keep making all the different bills look and feel so similar. Why should we keep wasting time double-checking to catch our mistakes when they could just make the money easier to work with in the first place? They're updating it every few years anyway, so why not?"
OurMoneyToo is gratified that Judges Rogers and Griffith recognized the importance of cash transactions to everyday life and the need for blind and visually impaired people to be able to participate on an equal footing in such transactions. We hope that the Department of the Treasury will comply with the court's ruling so the United States can join the more than 100 other countries that have already made their currency accessible to visually impaired and blind people, and easier to use for everyone.
If you would like to discuss this landmark ruling—and the good news it brings—please contact Jonathan Simeone through the above contact information. If you want to learn more about the issues involved in this case, please visit our website at http://www.OurMoneyToo.org.
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