Perkins adds voice to suit against US
Take out a $1 bill, $5 bill, and a $10 bill. Now close your eyes. Can you tell which is which?
Now imagine trying to buy a candy bar, or pay for a bus ticket, or get change from a taxi driver. You are left dependent upon the honesty and good will of others to avoid being cheated.
A Watertown institution, the Perkins School for the Blind, is offering support to a legal battle to force the United States to do what such countries as Canada, China, Gambia, Bangladesh, Australia and the members of the European Union already do: Print currency that is distinguishable by people who can't see.
The United States was the only one out of 171 currency-issuing bodies that lacked bills with features to help nonsighted or low-vision people tell different denominations apart, according to a 1995 study by the National Academy of Sciences. Other countries use such methods as different sizes for each denomination, embossed numbers or symbols, high-contrast colors, and large-print numbers.
The American Council of the Blind in 2002 filed a lawsuit alleging that the US Treasury discriminated against the visually impaired by repeatedly failing to redesign its paper money in a way that would allow it to be readily distinguishable. In November, a federal court judge ruled in the council's favor. The government is appealing the decision.
Last week, two Yale University School of Law students came to the Perkins School to interview students, staff, and community members. The testimony will be used to prepare a friend-of-the-court brief offering the school's position on the case.
The issue is one with particular relevance for one of the law students, Cyrus Habib, who has been blind since birth.
After US District Judge James Robertson's decision last fall, Habib approached one of his professors, Harold Hongju Koh, who is also the law school's dean and is notable for his work in civil and human rights cases.
"He said, 'Someone should really write an amicus brief on this,' " said Habib, referring to the "friend" filing. "I didn't realize at the time that was code for 'Get busy.' "
But eventually he did, along with classmate Jon Finer. Koh is supervising the pair's work.
"People shouldn't have to rely on other people to do something," said Habib, referring to how visually impaired people need help at the cash register. "This is deeply American -- the idea of being an individual, being independent."
"A day like this is fantastic," Finer said after the two first-year law students met with Perkins students last Friday. "It pushes the issue forward just being here."
But t he currency issue isn't just a consumer issue for visually impaired people; it also can affect their job opportunities.
Perkins student Cory Kadlik, 16, discovered this when he called a deli near his home in Medway about a part-time job that would involve working the cash register. The owner turned him down, saying that dishonest customers could take advantage of Kadlik.
"I feel bad for them because they want to give you the job, but they can't," Kadlik said of potential employers like the deli owner. "It kills them to do that. I feel bad and they feel bad, it's a mess. I just cry."
One of the school's social workers, in a later session, agreed.
"The ability to manage your own money, to be independent in that way. . . that's so greatly affected," said Jim Witmer. "The simplest of transactions and purchases requires some sort of assistance. They don't have the access their peers do, and built into that is learning mathematics, learning social interactions."
Tyler Tarrasi, a 17-year-old from Framingham, said he feels at a disadvantage to sighted teens his age looking for work in a store. "When you can't read the money, you can't have the job."
There are more than 3 million blind or low-vision people in the United States, according to the National Eye Institute, and not all of them agree with the American Council of the Blind's position. The National Federation of the Blind called Robertson's decision "dangerously misguided," and argued that such efforts distract from more important problems, such as lack of access to information in Braille and other formats.
"The blind need jobs and real opportunities to earn money, not feel-good gimmicks that misinform the public about our capabilities," the federation's president, Dr. Marc Maurer, said in a statement after the November court decision. The ruling, he went on to say, "argues that the blind cannot handle currency or documents in the workplace and that virtually everything must be modified for the use of the blind. An employer who believes that. . . will have a strong incentive not to hire a blind person."
Almost 38,000 people in Massachusetts are legally or totally blind, according to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind.
The US government's defense is that failing to have discernible currency may be an inconvenience, but it is not discriminatory. It also maintained that redesigning paper money would be too expensive, an argument that Robertson rejected.
Using estimates from the federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing, he reasoned that the most expensive design option, making bills in different sizes, would cost up to $228 million initially and $52 million more per year than the current design. He noted the cost would amount to "only a small fraction" of the bureau's budget.
"Over the past 10 years -- and two redesigns -- the BEP has spent $4.2 billion on currency production, an average of $420 million per year," Robertson said in his decision. He added that if adaptive features were incorporated into a pre planned redesign, "the total burden of adding such a feature would be even smaller."
As an alternative to using redesigned cash, the Treasury's lawyers said, blind people could use digital currency readers, or pay for items with debit or credit cards.
Habib said plastic cards are often useless in such daily transactions as buying candy or a subway ticket. Besides, he said, he still needs a sighted person to verify that a credit card receipt is correct.
As for currency readers, they are costly, heavy, and are unreliable with worn bills, advocates for the blind say.
The federal government also said the visually impaired can identify paper money by developing their own money-handling techniques, such as folding each denomination a different way, or keeping bills in different pockets.
In response, blind people note that they still have to rely on others to make sure they receive or give the correct change.
Alison Roberts of Waltham is a co founder of OurMoneyToo.org, an Internet-based organization fighting for currency change. At a meeting with Habib and Finer, she demonstrated a commonly used reader. The Note Teller took more than two minutes to "read" five bills, and the newly redesigned $20 bill wasn't recognized at all.
"Imagine you're the person behind me in line," said Judi Cannon, who is blind and a Braille services specialist at Perkins.
Or, Roberts added, imagine you're a cashier, trying to use the Note Teller to count up the day's receipts.
Jason Campbell, a 21-year-old Perkins student, said not being able to handle money reinforces stereotypes about blind people.
"They think blind people can't do much," he said. If they don't give you a chance, you can't prove them wrong. And maybe they don't want to be proven wrong."
Stephanie V. Siek can be reached at ssiek@globe.com. 