THE BRAILLE MONITOR

Vol. 44, No. 5                                                                     May, 2001

                                                           Barbara Pierce, Editor

                                   Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by

                                     THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                                                   MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT

                                                                 National Office

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         THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION

     SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES

ISSN 0006-8819

           Philadelphia Site of 2001 NFB Convention!

                         

     The 2001 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 1-7. Arrangements have been made to hold our convention at the Philadelphia Marriott, a first-class convention hotel. The Marriott is now full, but space is still available at the Marriott Courtyard, across the street. Room rates at this overflow hotel are excellent: singles $55 and twins, doubles, triples, and quads $65 a night, plus tax. The hotel is accepting reservations now. A $60-per-room deposit is required to make a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit will be refunded if notice is given to the hotel of a reservation cancellation before May 19, 2001. The other 50 percent will not be refundable. For reservations call the hotel and specify the Marriott Courtyard at (115) 615-1900, or call the Marriott toll-free number (800) 118-9190.

     Rooms at the Marriott Courtyard will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations may be made to secure these rooms before May 19, 2001, assuming that rooms are still available. After that time the hotel will not hold the block of rooms for the convention. In other words, you should get your reservation in soon.

     Participants in the 1999 and 1250 conventions can testify to the gracious hospitality of the Marriott. Our headquarters hotel, the Philadelphia Marriott, has excellent restaurants, first-rate meeting space, and other top-notch facilities. It is in downtown Philadelphia across the street from the Reading Terminal Market, an establishment which combines the sites, smells, experiences, and tastes of Philadelphia cuisine and the Amish Farmers' Trading Center. Other attractions of Philadelphia are immediately at hand, and of course the convention will be occurring in the spacious ballroom of the Marriott.

     The 2001 Convention will follow a Sunday-through-Saturday schedule:

              Sunday, July 1     Seminar Day

              Monday, July 1     Registration Day

              Tuesday, July 3    Board Meeting and Division Day

              Wednesday, July 4  Opening Session

              Thursday, July 5   Tour Day

              Friday, July 6     Banquet Day

              Saturday, July 7   Business Session

                         

                  Plan to be in Philadelphia.

          The action of the convention will be there!

Vol. 44, No. 5 May, 2001

                           Contents

A New Day in Rehabilitation for the Blind....................

Empowerment, Partnership, and High Expectations:

Just Words, or the Foundation of Effective Rehabilitation?...

     by Fredric K. Schroeder, Ph.D.

U.S. Backs the Disabled in Suit against Cruise Industry......

     by Warren Richey

From the President's Mail Basket:

Reflections on Descriptive Videos............................

     by Marc Maurer

Recent NFB Resolutions Concerning Descriptive Video..........

American Council of the Blind Adds Bad Taste

to Bigotry and Self-Deception................................

     by Barbara Pierce

From the Listservs:

More about Descriptive Video.................................

Reflections on the Long White Cane...........................

     by Kevan Worley

Walking with an NFB Cane.....................................

     by John Bailey

Victory in Indiana...........................................

     by Pam Schnurr

Shopping for Braille Notetakers? Take Note...................

     by Brad Hodges

Blind Doctor Sees Patients in a Different Way................

     by Helen O'Neill

Negotiating the Dark.........................................

     by Stephen O. Benson

Interesting Employment Phenomena in the State of Utah........

     by Sherrie Crespo

The Philadelphia Marriott, Your Home for a Week This Summer..

     by Jim Antonacci

Encountering History.........................................

     by Toni Whaley

Recipes......................................................

Monitor Miniatures...........................................

       Copyright © 2001 National Federation of the Blind

[LEAD PHOTO/CAPTION: The National Federation of the Blind-Allegra 2001 Everest Expedition, with blind climber Erik Weihenmayer as a member of the climbing team, reached base camp at 17,600 feet above sea level on April 6, 2001. During April and early May the team, their Sherpas, and the support crew remaining at base camp have been organizing equipment and preparing for the team's attempt to reach the summit. The team and the Sherpas have carried necessary gear to the camps further up the mountain, and the film crew have worked on their gear and have done what filming they could. Pictured above is a bit of the Khumbu icefall near base camp. It is filled with crevasses, seracs, and large and small blocks of ice that shift unpredictably. The team must climb and reclimb through this ice field, scaling ice faces and crossing crevasses on ladders, to reach the upper mountain. When everything is ready in early May, the team will rest for a few days at a lower altitude to gather strength for the final attempt. Then, perhaps with the full moon on May 7, the ascent of the upper reaches will begin. In large part the timing of the final stretch of the climb will depend on the weather. But the mountain and nature willing, the team will attempt to summit Mt. Everest during the second week of May. The mountain is 19,035 feet tall, and the region above 15,000 feet is known as the death zone because one must use bottled oxygen in order to survive. Follow the expedition on <www.2001everest.com>. This site had a quarter million hits between March 1 and the middle of April. From the details of everyday life to climbing the tallest mountain in the world, the National Federation of the Blind is changing what it means to be blind. Mt. Everest in moonlight is pictured below.]

           A New Day in Rehabilitation for the Blind

                         

     From the Editor: For far too many years the rehabilitation of blind people was conducted by professionals, some of whom were blind, but almost all of whom were quite conscious of their exalted position as professionals. The clients were dealt with, repaired as well as possible, and sent off to the outside world, where they resumed their lives as best they could. If they expressed an interest in establishing a dialogue with the professionals about the services blind people needed and their expectations of the capacities of blind people or tried to get to know and help new clients still in the system, they were firmly discouraged and clearly kept on the outside.

     In recent years the popularity of this model has begun to fade. Clients are now called consumers of services or customers, and the notion that we are all engaged in this effort together is certainly becoming fashionable and is even being acted upon more frequently. Professionals are learning that consumers and consumer groups can actually be of help, and the organized blind movement is coming to hold increasing respect for those professionals who are willing to work with us to achieve common goals in rehabilitation.

     The leadership of the National Federation of the Blind decided that the time had come to call together a group of blindness rehabilitation agency leaders and the NFB affiliate presidents in their states. The result was a two-day conference held at the National Center for the Blind in January of 2001. It provided an opportunity for those who shared a commitment to quality service for blind people and a willingness to work together for common goals to think creatively about our problems and look for constructive solutions. Time will tell whether further such discussions will bear additional fruit. Following are the agenda for the meeting, the participant list, and the address delivered by Dr. Fred Schroeder, who that week was completing his term as Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration:

                         

                         

Millennium Symposium on Improving Services for the Blind

January 18-19, 2001

National Center for the Blind

Sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind

Marc Maurer, President

                         

                            Program

                         

1. Welcome and Introduction

1. Report from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder)

3. Structure of Agencies for the Blind--Advantages and

Disadvantages (Jim Omvig)

4. Relationships with Consumer Groups--What Can Consumers Do for Agencies and What Can Agencies Do for Consumers?

(Jamie Hilton and Joe Ruffalo)

5. Services Reasonably to be Expected from an Agency for the Blind (Tom Robertson and Jim Omvig)

     (a) Vocational Rehabilitation Services

     (b) Related Services

     (c) Services to the Elderly Blind

     (d) Nontraditional Services

6. Studies of Rehabilitation Effectiveness (Joe Cordova)

7. Legislative Priorities--Federal and State (James Gashel)

     (a) Medicare in Rehabilitation (James Gashel and Kristen Cox)

     (b) Model State Commission for the Blind Bill (James Gashel)

     (c) State Technology Bills (James Gashel)

     (d) Inequities in the Formula for 110 Funding (Allen Harris)

8. Randolph-Sheppard Priorities (Kevan Worley)

     (a) Third-party Contracts

     (b) Regional Initiatives

     (c) Traditional Approaches

9. Training of Rehabilitation Professionals (Joanne Wilson, Susan Benbow, and Joe Cordova)

10. Operation of Orientation to Blindness Programs (Joanne Wilson, Joyce Scanlan, Diane McGeorge, and Julie Deden)

11. Standards for Rehabilitation Personnel and Programs

11. Technology in Rehabilitation--The Need for Trained Technology

Professionals

13. Future Initiatives

14. Adjourn

                         

MILLENNIUM SYMPOSIUM PARTICIPANTS

Susan Benbow, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of the Commissioner, Rehabilitation Services Administration, United States Department of Education

Patrick Cannon, Executive Director, Michigan Commission for the Blind, Family Independence Agency

Betty Capps, Member, National Federation of the Blind since 1956

Donald Capps, Board Member, National Federation of the Blind; Senior Administrator, Claims Department, Colonial Life Insurance Company (retired)

Nell Carney, Commissioner, South Carolina Commission for the Blind

Joe Cordova, Director, Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Rehabilitation Services Administration, United States Department of Education

Kristen Cox, Assistant Director of Governmental Affairs, National Federation of the Blind

Richard Davis, Assistant Director, Employment Services, Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions

Julie Deden, Executive Director, Colorado Center for the Blind

Vito DeSantis, Manager, Joseph Kohn Rehabilitation Center, Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired, New Jersey Department of Human Services

Parnell Diggs, President, National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina

Peggy Elliott, Second Vice President, National Federation of the Blind; President, National Federation of the Blind of Iowa

Ron Gardner, President, National Federation of the Blind of Utah

James Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs, National Federation of the Blind

Bill Gibson, Director, Utah Division of Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Allen Harris, Treasurer, National Federation of the Blind; Director of Field Operations, New York State Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped, Office of Children and Family Services

Jamie Hilton, Executive Director, Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired, New Jersey Department of Human Services

Ray Hopkins, Visual Services Director, Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Visual Services Division

Cathy Jackson, President, National Federation of the Blind of Kentucky

Carl Jacobsen, President, National Federation of the Blind of New York

Mary Ellen Jernigan, Director of Operations, National Federation of the Blind

Ed Kunz, Director, Texas Commission for the Blind, Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center

Melody Lindsey, Director, Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center

Marc Maurer, President, National Federation of the Blind

Shawn Mayo, President, National Association of Blind Students

Diane McGeorge, Member, Board of Directors, National Federation of the Blind; Chairman, Board of Directors, Colorado Center for the Blind

Terry Murphy, Executive Director, Texas Commission for the Blind

Noel Nightingale, President, National Federation of the Blind of Washington; Blindness Skills Development Director, Washington State Department of Services for the Blind

Jim Omvig, Administrator of Programs for the Blind (retired)

Bill Palmer, Executive Director, Washington State Department of Services for the Blind

Zena Pearcy, President, National Federation of the Blind of Texas

Mary Poole, National Development Professional and Consultant

Tom Robertson, Associate Commissioner, New York State Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped, Office of Children and Family Services

Joe Ruffalo, President, National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey

Joyce Scanlan, First Vice President, National Federation of the Blind; Executive Director, Blindness Learning in New Dimensions

Arthur Schreiber, President, National Federation of the Blind of New Mexico

Fred Schroeder, Commissioner, Rehabilitation Services Administration, United States Department of Education

Michael Seay, President, National Federation of the Blind of Tennessee

Carlos Servan, President, National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska; Deputy Director, Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Steven Shelton, President, National Federation of the Blind of Oklahoma

Terry Smith, Executive Director, Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Tennessee Department of Human Services

Greg Trapp, Executive Director, New Mexico Commission for the Blind

Pearl Van Zandt, Executive Director, Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Barbara Walker, Chairman, Nebraska Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Joanne Wilson, Member, Board of Directors, National Federation of the Blind; Executive Director, Louisiana Center for the Blind

Betty Woodward, President, National Federation of the Blind of Connecticut

Kevan Worley, President, National Association of Blind Merchants

Fred Wurtzel, President, National Federation of the Blind of Michigan; Program Manager, Business Enterprise Program, Michigan Commission for the Blind, Family Independence Agency

                         

                         

 

       Empowerment, Partnership, and High Expectations:

  Just Words, or the Foundation of Effective Rehabilitation?

                by Fredric K. Schroeder, Ph.D.

                         

     From the Editor: Until January 10, 2001, Dr. Schroeder was Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education. He delivered the following remarks at the Millennium Symposium on Rehabilitation. This is what he said:

                         

     I am very pleased to be here with all of you. This is an historic event. It is perhaps illustrative of the change in the nature of rehabilitation and in the assertion that rehabilitation is not something that is done to us and for us, but rather rehabilitation, as it should be, is a partnership.

     My early experience in rehabilitation was in New Mexico. I was directing special education services for blind children with the Albuquerque public schools at a time when the programs for the blind in New Mexico were not what blind people in the state would have had them be. I had lived out of state for a period of years going to college and had worked for two years in Nebraska. When I went back to New Mexico in 1980, I went to a chapter meeting of the National Federation of the Blind. (Joe Cordova will remember those times.) The chapter meeting had probably twenty-five blind people, and of those Joe was one of the very few who had a job.

     As I worked with the NFB in the state, we tried to encourage the agency to support people in pursuing training and good quality employment, but we were unsuccessful. For example, I remember a person who literally had a job offer, and the only thing needed was a Braillewriter in order to accept it. The agency for the blind in the state said that they didn't have any money for a Braillewriter, so they weren't able to provide that service. I don't say this to be critical of individuals who were there at the time--but it is fair to say, in fact we documented it, that mostly what the agency did was what we call physical restoration. If you came to the agency with a correctable eye condition, there was plenty of money to send you for eye surgery. But if you were a blind person and you needed a Braillewriter, there was no money.

     I remember a young blind woman who had some vision. She wanted a job, and we got her signed up for services. One of the first things they did was to ask her what she wanted to do, and she said office work. So they sent her for a vocational evaluation. Weeks later nothing had happened, and nothing continued to happen, so I intervened in the case to see what the outcome of the evaluation had been. I found out that her case had been closed because she was ruled to be too severely handicapped to benefit from rehabilitation. There was no reasonable expectation that she could become employed. When I asked the basis for that decision, they said, "Well, she indicated that she wanted to do office work. We sent her for an evaluation, and the report came back saying she didn't see well enough to do office work."

     The point of this is two-fold. One is to say we are not talking ancient history. This was twenty years ago. We are not talking about an isolated incident in one state that had poor services. I think we are talking about a condition in rehabilitation driven by a lack of expectations, a lack of belief in blind people. And, as I say, my point is not to criticize or belittle the people who were working in rehabilitation in New Mexico or anywhere else but to stress that there was no fundamental assumption that blind people could work and be productive.

     One of the things I did in trying to make changes in the rehabilitation agency (this was while I was still on the outside--President of the NFB of New Mexico) was to help people file appeals to try to get the services they needed. The appeals were by and large unsuccessful--unsuccessful to the point that I wondered whether anybody who appealed a decision ever had that decision changed. At that time the standard was very simple: you appealed to the very agency that had denied you some sort of service. Not very just, but you went to the local supervisor, then you went to a district-level person, then you eventually went to the state VR director, who looked it over and decided that all the folks along the way had been correct and that you shouldn't get what you had asked for.

     So I wrote a letter to the director of the agency (by the way, this was a combined agency), and I said, "I want to know for the past year how many blind people have asked for fair hearings and how many have been decided in favor of the client." I got a letter back saying that this was confidential information, that they couldn't divulge information about the clients. I wrote back and said, "Perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't want to know the names. I don't want to know any identifying information. I want to know how many blind people who were clients of your agency filed for fair hearings to challenge a decision, and how many determinations were made in the consumer's favor." I got back the same letter saying this is confidential information, and we can't provide it.

     Again, my purpose is not to criticize the director of the agency, but rather to point out again the agency attitude that the consumer as represented by the consumer organization was on the outside and frankly had no business meddling in how the agency did its business.

     Eventually we were able to create a separate agency for the blind in New Mexico. We did this in 1986 with the kind of concerted action the Federation has engaged in for its entire history. We went to the legislature and made the case. We fought a very hard battle. It was what in Washington is called grassroots effort, and it worked. So in 1986 we created a separate agency.

     Now it seemed one of the things we ought to be doing was put blind people to work. So we began emphasizing honest to goodness employment for people, not those who had correctable blindness, but people who would be blind regardless of any kind of medical intervention. At the end of my first year I had the distinction of cutting the number of successful closures in half. It went from 110 to about fifty-five. I wondered to myself how this was possible. Here are the things I uncovered: at that time and previous to my coming, the agency had $730,000 devoted to case service. Of that $730,000, $700,000 had gone for medical procedures, which essentially left nothing for any other kind of service. We didn't reduce that wholly in the first year, but within about three years we were up over $1,125,000 in case service, and we were down under $150,000 in medical procedures.

     One hundred ten people the year before had been placed in employment, and I thought to myself, "I know a lot of blind people in this state, and I can't think of a single one who went to work last year, much less a hundred-ten of them. Where are these blind people who have all gone to work?" Well, as you can imagine, most of them were people whose vision had been corrected. My first inkling of this was when I looked at the occupations of people who had gone to work the year before. One had gone to work as an airline pilot, which alerted me to the fact that perhaps this person wasn't blind when he or she walked out the door.

     So we put an emphasis on really trying to help blind people get serious training and support and get into real jobs. Though there are many strategies for doing this, one of them is very simple. In performance evaluation I quit counting twenty-six closures, the code term for successful closures. I said that we would count only those people who were still blind when we closed them and who were making above minimum wage in full-time employment. Of course that is a standard that you could argue is not sufficiently conclusive, but it seemed to me a simple standard that everyone could understand. The expectation was that we wanted people to go to full-time employment at a living wage, and we wanted them to have been blind when they came in the door and blind when they walked out the door. I'm not against people getting their eyesight back, but I don't think that is why you have a rehabilitation agency.

     When I left to go to RSA eight years later in 1994, I was sitting in a chapter meeting of the NFB. Instead of twenty-five people in the room, there were about seventy-five people. Instead of one or two of them being employed, as I went around the room, I couldn't think of a single person in that room who was unemployed. Let me give credit where it is due: my top rehab counselor was actually not a counselor at all but my deputy director Joe Cordova. We gave awards to our counselors for the greatest number of people placed in employment, and unfortunately, since Joe wasn't a counselor, I couldn't give him such an honor, but had I done so, he would have taken that award every year. People who were difficult to place would end up in Joe's case load, and Joe got them jobs. How? Well, he started with the assumption that they could work, that nobody should be relegated to isolation and poverty. Given the right encouragement, training, and support, they could go to work. And they did go to work.

     We had been told for years that the sheltered workshop could not pay minimum wage. People who worked in a sheltered shop were called clients. They had no benefits whatsoever, no Social Security tax was withheld, and they were paid subminimum wages. As a result, when people left the shop, no matter how long they had been in it, they had no paid quarters into Social Security, so they didn't have access to SSDI, which pays better than SSI. They had no long-term security of any kind. We were told over and over that the shop could not pay minimum wage; the money was not there. I'll come back to that in a minute.

     I remember at a state convention we had Rami Rabby as our national representative. Rami was engaged in a lively discussion with the person who was heading the workshop. He suggested that maybe minimum wage could be paid. This fellow began to pound the podium, and he started saying, "You show me where the money will come from. I defy you to look through my budget and show me where the money will come from."

     Rami said, "Look, are you telling me that, if utility bills go up next summer, you will call up the electric company and say to them, `You come and show me in my budget how I can pay this new expense?'" He said, "I am sure it isn't provided for in the budget, but it is really nothing more than a matter of will."

     The very first policy I issued on perhaps my first day, maybe my second day, effective immediately, was to begin paying minimum wage as a starting salary for all people who worked in a sheltered workshop. Eight years later we had not gone broke although we had to do some things differently. This is really the point. If you are going to pay minimum wage, the money has to come from somewhere, and the somewhere is the productivity of the people who are doing the work and the profitability of the items being made.

     If you pay people on piece work, then it doesn't matter whether you have trained people well. It doesn't matter if the equipment works well. It doesn't matter whether it's an item that can be profitably sold because all of the inefficiency gets passed along through that piece rate. In other words, for some of you who are not familiar with this, you start with the industry standard. Perhaps the industry standard for making mops is ten mops an hour at a wage of five dollars an hour; therefore each mop is worth fifty cents in wages. You say to the blind worker, whether you make ten mops an hour or one doesn't matter. If you make ten, you get five dollars. If you make one mop, you get fifty cents, which some people argued and still to this day argue is fair. They say, after all, why shouldn't you pay people according to their productivity?

     But if the guy in private industry making ten mops an hour is using modern equipment and new procedures, and the blind person is working on antiquated equipment that keeps breaking down, it isn't fair. In fact, in one workshop I knew at peak performance the equipment blind people were working on couldn't produce at even half the rate of the industry standard. So this isn't paying people according to their productivity, according to how much they produce; this is paying people an unfair wage based on poor management practices. Yes, we had to come up with the money, so one of the things we did was change the product line to be more successful. Another thing we did was quit having people do jobs that they weren't well suited to.

     There was a woman--this is another of Joe Cordova's closures--she had a good personality, probably still does. I haven't seen her in a while. She had a college education. She's blind. She also had cerebral palsy, so she had only the use of one arm. In the sheltered workshop they had her assembling heavy rubber floor mats. Now to make minimum wage on these floor mats, you had to make twelve a day. She was able to make approximately one third of one mat a day because she was doing this very physical operation with one arm. In fact she testified when we created the Commission for the Blind. She brought out her paycheck. For two weeks of work her net pay was $5.14.

     Joe thought to himself, a person with use of only one arm is not a good candidate for doing a very physical job. She also lived way up in the mountains and didn't have transportation. There was no good public transportation. We helped her to start a telephone answering service. She signed up a couple of doctors and some real estate agents, and she had all the calls forwarded to her house. She ran a private business out of her home and made a very decent wage.

     What changed was the expectation. If you assume that blind people can be productive and competitive, then your energy is focused in a certain direction. That is to say, you are forced then to look differently at what is needed to make that enterprise work. We looked at modern practices and more successful product lines. We looked at matching people according to their skills.

     It wasn't that the people who were in that workshop management prior to the commission's being created were bad people; they were not. In fact most of them were the same people who stayed on. What changed was the expectation--the fundamental belief in blind people.

     We did some other things. The first was to raise the wages. The second was to go to the state personnel office and have all those positions classified as state jobs. So the people in our workshops were state employees, which meant they also got health benefits. They paid into a retirement plan. Social Security was withheld. These were real state jobs.

     A fellow who had run the workshop years earlier and who was retired--he was a blind person, a decent enough fellow--came to me and said, "You are going to create a place that is so warm and safe and comfortable that nobody is ever going to leave." I call this a concept of rehabilitation through misery--if you make it miserable enough, people will leave. You wouldn't want to have good working conditions because people won't leave. The funny thing is we didn't have records going back very far, but from what we were able to tell, in the previous five years only one person had left the sheltered workshop. That made me wonder if the concept of rehab through misery was really an effective one. Of course the answer is it was not.

     The truth of the matter is, if a person becomes blind in our society or grows up blind, the chances are that not only society around you assumes that you cannot be productive and competitive, but your family probably believes it, you probably believe it, and your friends probably believe it. If you go to the rehabilitation agency, and the people who are experts in employment of the blind also say to you, "Because of blindness you cannot be productive. You cannot compete as others do," why would you question that notion? If they say, "We have measured your productivity, your worth as an employee; and because of your blindness, your production is a quarter or a tenth of that of others," where would you go believing you could get a job?

     About a year after we started the commission and raised the wages, one of our great moments occurred. A woman who had worked in our sewing department a long time and who was making about $6 an hour, which was quite a bit above minimum wage--I believe the minimum wage was about $4 an hour--came to me and said, "You know I'm making $6 an hour, and I'm doing the same operation that they do at the Levi Straus plant here in town. Those people are making $8 an hour." We had done many things to up the productivity in the shop, but we were still government, you know--we weren't going to do as well as Levi Straus.

     I said, "I wish we could pay you $8 an hour. We probably can't, and you are right. You are doing the same job that they do at Levi Straus, and you are doing it as well as anybody they've got in their sewing department, so why don't we help you get a job at Levi?"--another Joe Cordova placement as I remember it. So this proved the lie of rehabilitation through misery. Instead we said to people, "Yes, you are capable." If you treat people as if they're capable, give them training, give them jobs that they are suited to and in which they can be successful, they might start to believe that they can do more than work in a sheltered workshop.

     These are the values that I believe in and that I tried to bring to the work in RSA. There has been a steady progression over the years of elevating expectations. It is never as fast or as dramatic as most of us would have it be, but I think it is there. One evidence is that people are saying that they will not accept isolation, segregation, unemployment, poverty, that people need the opportunity to work. We have tried to integrate that into the work that we have done.

     One of the things I have felt very strongly about is that rehabilitation is not just about employment, but about high-quality employment. Well, that is kind of a vague term. What is a high-quality job? To my mind you cannot look at any job and say it is a good job or a bad job. The fact that a person works as a custodian doesn't tell you whether that's a good or a bad job. It depends on whether that person is suited for the job, values the job, is truly there by choice because he or she would likely have that job with or without blindness or because people have assumed that as a blind person he or she could not achieve more. This isn't to denigrate any job but to say truly, if we have a fundamental assumption of the equality of blind people, that drives the kinds of encouragement, the kinds of training, the kinds of job placements people get.

     In 1991 the NFB got the language about consumer choice put into the Rehabilitation Act for the first time. I suppose one very important sign of the progress that we have made collectively in rehabilitation is that a lot of people only eight years later are taking credit for having put that language into the act. Just about everywhere I go, I meet people who take credit for having thought up the idea of choice.

     Choice was really the first expressed federal policy acknowledging that rehabilitation is not about doing things to or for people, but that rehabilitation is a support to help and encourage and stimulate the individual so he or she can in fact make the kinds of life choices that others make. In 1997 I issued a policy directive called PD9704. We said very radical things there. We said for example that people ought to be able to decide for themselves what kind of job they might want. This was controversial; this was very controversial. Yet it has become less so even over the past three years. In fact in some places it is thoroughly embraced. In many other places people are trying to embrace it, trying to integrate it.

     Yes, there are still a few who feel about it and about me the way they did when it was issued. But essentially the law says that we must make a determination of the employment outcome for each person according to the individual's "strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, capabilities, interests, and informed choice." So what do all those words run together mean? They mean the collection of things that make up a human being. The job ought to be one that an individual wants to do, a job that the person values. It ought to be high-quality employment based on the individual's assessment and rooted truly in information and informed choice.

     You could have argued fifteen years ago that blind people working for subminimum wages in a sheltered workshop in New Mexico were there by informed choice, but I would argue they were not. They weren't there based on factual information about blindness and the capacity of blind people to work. They were there based on widespread societal assumptions about our inability and the way those played out in society, in the individual, and in the rehabilitation system in our state.

     Informed choice means fundamentally that a person who becomes blind or even grows up blind first needs to associate with other blind people. The individual first needs to know what is possible as a blind person. The family won't likely know, nor will his or her community. So first and foremost blind people need to have exposure to other blind people, not just for the encouragement from those who have done remarkable things, although that certainly is part of it, but also to gain perspective on how societal attitudes about blindness play out.

     There are people in our society today, bright, capable, ambitious people who are blind whose lives have been devastated by discrimination, by rejection; and that is part of understanding blindness. Yet we must also understand that we as blind people can help encourage and sustain one another through the discrimination, through the rejection, through the diminished expectations that are all around us. Together we have the possibility of success, while on our own we have a very low probability of true success.

     Being around other blind people is the first element, to my mind, of true informed choice. The second is to have the skills to back up elevated expectations. If you do not have the skills, then you cannot sustain the elevated expectations. If you have only a belief in equality, but you really don't have the capacity to go out and to travel and to be literate and to carry out those day-to-day activities, you won't sustain that elevated expectation. And by the way, while we are on that subject, if all you have is skills without the expectation, you will fall short of your potential--far short--because you will simply use those skills to do what you believe is possible for a blind person to do. You need the elevated expectations that come from other blind people, and you need to have that sustained by the skills and the support to back up those elevated expectations.

     Then we need a rehabilitation system that does not view itself primarily as a gate keeper. We, of course, are gate keepers to some extent. There is only so much public money, and it has to be used wisely. But if we approach rehabilitation only as gate keepers, using our authority to hold the line and to prevent the extraordinary, we will lose the chance to help people become all that they can. I can tell you the way state and federal government work, at least in my experience. If you look at the rules and regulations in state government, you often find that one person one time manipulated the system in a bad way, resulting in a whole set of rules and procedures being put into place so that never again would a single person be able to cheat the state out of one thing. And now everybody is scrutinized and held to an oppressive standard.

     Years ago I was at an exit conference with the state auditor as part of our annual audit. In New Mexico in addition to all the written material and review of documents the state auditor had to ask the chief executive of every state agency personally the question, "At any time during the year did you use state money to buy coffee?" Because, who knows when, some agency had bought refreshments for some sort of meeting, and the state legislature thought it was a bad use of tax dollars. Not only did the legislature ban buying coffee, but they put it into law that the state auditor had to ask the chief executive of every state agency to verify that during the year no state dollars went to buy coffee.

     These gate-keeping functions can end up creating absolute dysfunction. We all know of many, many examples. If you have ever tried to buy assistive technology for blind people--in the state where I was, sometimes it seemed likely that the person would retire before you could clear away the red tape to buy the technology. We cannot demoralize consumers. We must not make them feel as if they are being selfish or demanding when they express their needs. Instead, the spirit and attitude of the people who work in the agency must be encouraging--encouraging people to try and explore and develop their confidence and their skills, to stretch themselves to become the very best they can.

     So the work we have put into place, not just PD9704, but the changes we proposed in the 1998 reauthorization, the regulations published yesterday that implement the 1998 amendments, the regulation you have heard about concerning sheltered work that went to the Federal Register on Tuesday of this week and should be published very shortly: all of these are to say to our system and to ourselves that what we are about is encouraging people to seek a place of real integration and get good jobs and that we should stand with them, encourage them in that pursuit.

     Finally I will say to all of you what I said to the group of the CSAVR leadership a number of years ago. I had just met a young blind woman who was very capable; she had just graduated from high school, and she wanted to be a teacher. The rehabilitation counselor said to her, "You really haven't had any experience with teaching, so why don't we start by saying that you want to be a teacher's aide. That way you'll get some experience working with kids and see whether in fact you really want to be a teacher." Well, this eighteen-year-old young woman didn't know any better, so she put down on her plan that she wanted to be a teacher's aide.

     This young woman's family had some money, and she had been accepted at a prestigious private college. The family intended to pay the tuition and living expenses. They knew she needed some technology in order to do well in college, so they went to the agency and said they'd like help in planning what kind of technology she needed (they were willing to pay for it). They requested help in deciding where to buy what she needed and in finding training to help her learn how to use it. The agency said they couldn't provide these services--this is not ancient history; it happened about three or four years ago. The reason the agency couldn't provide the service was that one doesn't need assistive technology to be a teacher's aide. That was her goal, and they couldn't provide a service that didn't support that goal.

     I said to that small group from CSAVR: here is the problem. Let's use the analogy of grades, A, B, C, D, etc. If you think of the very best services that we can provide as A-level services, the problem that we who run public agencies have is that there are always more people who need help than there are resources to help them. It seems to me that there is pressure to say, okay, look, we need to be efficient; we need to economize. But if we do that at the level of the individual, over time we erode the system. It's insidious because, if you first start trimming back just a little bit, you can rationalize to yourself, look, we may not be giving A services, but we are giving B plus services, which are still really good services, and by doing this, we are able to serve more people than we otherwise could.

     And of course the problem is that there are still more people at the door who need help, so over time you go from B plus to B minus services. And you say look, these are still good services--above-average services. By making these economies, we are able to serve more people. Yet there are still more who need help, so you slip to C services, and you are saying, but we don't promise people a Cadillac; these are good services, average, typical services. We can't do more because we have so many people who need the help. Maybe you stay at C services; maybe you slip to C minus or D plus services.

     The problem is that there will still be more people who need the help; yet, when you go to the state legislature, when you go to the Congress and you ask for the resources, where is your constituency? Are people going to stand up and demand more money for the program when they've got C or C-minus or D-plus services? Do you want to have a constituency who stands up and says, "Well, it did take several months to get a plan written, and no, they didn't end up buying me the computer or supporting the training I wanted, but I did get a Braille watch, and the counselor was very nice to me and wished he could do more?" That's going to inspire your legislature or Congress to protect you? Of course not. This is not to be critical. This is politics.

     If on the other hand you give each client A services--now does A-level service mean wasting money, lavishing money?--of course not. These are my tax dollars too--after Saturday, there won't be as many of my tax dollars [laughter]. We're not talking about wasting money or squandering money or being lavish with money. We are talking about taking risks with money, sometimes doing things that we are not entirely certain will work, but, if we give people A services and there is not enough money to go around, then you've got people demanding access to these services, saying, "These are vital services. These services change people's lives, and I need them too." Then you have a constituency.

     So all of this is to say, in my view, that the future of rehabilitation is certainly dotted with many challenges, but they are different only because of the context, the times in which we live, the new environment. There have always been challenges to the system. I can say to you: should I ever find myself running a state rehab agency again, I will seek to build an agency that has a constituency. I want the ordinary consumer, the ordinary blind person to say, "By my coming to this agency, my life was changed." I don't think this is just feel-good philosophy. I think this is good rehabilitation practice.

     I will boast on a bit of data about the New Mexico agency which I came upon after I got to Washington. I didn't know what I am about to tell you when I was there. When we did our first trial run of the standards and indicators, I was very proud of one fact. The New Mexico blind ranked number one in the nation in job placements. (I can tell you exactly how that was calculated.) But it was number one in placements, and it was next to the last in the amount of money spent per case. That is to say, the agency spent more money per case than all but one other agency. Now I consider that a plus. If you don't, then just remember that Art Schreiber was director at that point. If you think that it was a plus, then just remember that he was using the infrastructure I put in place.

     You could say, "Okay, you did get a lot of people jobs. You did it very expensively; yet wouldn't it be a reasonable goal to say let's get that same number of people jobs, or even more, but let's do it less expensively? Isn't that still an important value?" Let me give you one more piece of data--I didn't ask for this; one of my staff came to me and had done a very interesting run. He looked at the proportion of blind people who went off Social Security benefits as a proportion of successful closures in each state. New Mexico did not just rank number one in the number of blind people whose incomes, because of the services provided, were sufficient to get them off benefits. Proportionally, New Mexico was getting blind people off benefits at a rate three times the national average of agencies for the blind because it invested in people. It took risks. Not all the money spent ended up paying off, but in the aggregate the idea of using our resources in partnership with blind people to support and encourage them to live full and normal lives works. It works!

     This is why I started by saying I see today's meeting as such an historic event, such a landmark. As Dr. Maurer pointed out in his opening comments, this is no longer the day when you had the consumers on the outside and the rehab agency on the inside and the two battling one another. Our future in very practical terms depends on partnership, genuine honest-to-goodness partnership. But also our experience shows us that the best rehabilitation practice is partnership, working with blind people in support of elevated expectations, expectations drawn from the collective experience of blind people. The more you do it, the easier it gets because you get the base, the infrastructure of people who can then be the foundation for the next generation.

     A number of years ago I was on the scholarship committee of the NFB, and I met a young man from the state of Wisconsin. He was eighteen years old. He had just graduated from high school. He was going to college that fall to major in composite materials engineering. I said to him, "Chad, when I was eighteen, I didn't even know there was such a thing as composite materials engineering."

     Chad said, "When you were eighteen, there wasn't." Which was not my point. But compare the situations that I described in New Mexico: a person comes into an NFB chapter meeting, that is to say, a gathering of twenty-five blind people, only one or two of whom have a job. Compare that to a person coming to a gathering of seventy-five blind people, of whom virtually all have jobs or are in college preparing for employment. These are very different environments. Success builds on itself, helps sustain it, helps stimulate more of it.

     In conclusion I would say that the perspective I have learned to have on blindness has come through my association with the National Federation of the Blind, from many hours of reading Dr. Jernigan's and others' speeches that shaped my beliefs and attitudes about blindness. It came from being part of the community of blind people, of sharing in our collective successes and bearing our collective failures, from understanding that the real barrier to full equality and opportunity in employment is truly what Dr. Jernigan said many years ago, not the lack of eyesight, but attitudes about blindness--attitudes of society, attitudes of our families, of ourselves, of the rehabilitation profession.

     Our collective challenge is to reshape our attitudes by collectively building on an assumption that blind people can live full, normal, productive lives and then acting as if we believe it through our policies, our programs, our training, and the risks that we take. This to me is what rehabilitation is about. This to me is the underpinning of the success that we have created, and this notion of working collectively has been proven so many times in so many different ways that in my view it is the clear path for our future.

    U.S. Backs the Disabled in Suit against Cruise Industry

                       by Warren Richey

                         

     From the Editor: Those who heard or read President Maurer's 1250 Presidential Report will remember his discussion of two California Federationists, Joy and Robert Stigile, who decided to take a Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) cruise to Alaska on their honeymoon. NCL denied them access to the ship unless they agreed to bring a note from their doctor and have a sighted person stay with them to insure their safety in case of an emergency at sea. Steve Gomes of Denver had also been refused access to an NCL cruise the year before on grounds of blindness. During the Washington Seminar in 1250 Scott LaBarre began talking with officials at the Department of Justice about the Gomes case, and they expressed interest. When the Stigile case popped up in the next several months, DOJ looked into the situation seriously and determined that there was cause to believe that discrimination had taken place. Officials tried to resolve the matter with Norwegian Cruise Lines, but NCL officials had no interest in discussing the matter. So the Department of Justice filed a complaint against NCL, which immediately filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. According to Scott LaBarre the NCL motion is a pretty standard response and is likely to be denied. Although the DOJ suit is based on the individual complaints of the Stigiles and Steve Gomes, the United States of America is the plaintiff seeking to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act. Consequently the Stigiles and Steve Gomes are not actually parties to the matter, but the NFB is now preparing to intervene to make them official parties to the suit.

     The following story appeared March 20, 2001, in the Christian Science Monitor. Except for failing to include the information that the National Federation of the Blind is deeply involved in the suit, the reporter did a good job of telling the story. Here it is:

                         

     When Joy and Robert Stigile were married last June, they thought it would be fun and exciting to celebrate their honeymoon on a cruise to Alaska. But their excitement quickly turned to frustration after the cruise line discovered the Stigiles are both blind.

     Officials with the cruise line said they would not be permitted on the ship unless they presented a note from their physician verifying that they were "fit to travel." They were asked to sign liability waivers freeing the ship of any responsibility should they be injured during the cruise.

     And cruise‑line officials suggested that perhaps it would be best if the newlyweds traveled "with an individual in the same cabin who is not sight‑impaired" so that the Stigiles could be helped in the event of an emergency on the ship.

     The Stigiles promptly made other arrangements for their honeymoon. But they refuse to walk away from what they consider illegal discrimination based on false stereotypes and prejudice against blind passengers. Their story is at the center of one of the latest lawsuits involving the Americans with Disabilities Act. The U.S. Justice Department has filed the suit in federal court here [Miami, Florida] charging that Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) violated the 1990 law and U.S. civil rights protections when it imposed different standards for prospective cruise‑ship passengers who are blind.

     "The way I view it, this is a cruise line attempting to impose on a blind person its stereotypes of what a blind person can or cannot do," says Scott LaBarre, a Denver lawyer involved in the case. Mr. LaBarre is president of the National Association of Blind Lawyers.

     "The cruise line may have believed that, when you are blind, you need a lot more assistance than you actually need and that somebody has to be assigned to you to make sure you are safe and not tripping over things and falling off the ship," he says.

     NCL officials have yet to respond to the allegations in the suit. A lawyer for the cruise line, Curtis Mase of Miami, has filed a motion asking that the case be thrown out of court because of what he says are procedural defects in the complaint. But Mr. Mase declined to comment on whether NCL discriminates against blind passengers. He says, if necessary, that issue will be addressed later in court pleadings.

     One issue that may arise in the case is whether NCL, a Bermuda corporation, can be held liable for alleged violations of U.S. law. A three‑judge federal appeals court panel in Atlanta ruled last summer that foreign‑flagged cruise ships that operate in U.S. waters and dock in U.S. ports are subject to the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

     That case involved a woman in a wheelchair who was assured prior to the cruise that she would be provided a wheelchair‑accessible cabin. Hers was not.

     At one point, according to press reports, when she complained about being unable to gain access to the toilet without help, a crew member handed her a bucket. That case involved Premier Cruise Lines, which is now out of business.

     "In a lot of ways, this is simpler than a wheelchair‑access case where the person could be barred by the design of the ship," says LaBarre. "When you are blind, your major barrier is not physical mobility. You can go up steps and step over those watertight ledges."

     LaBarre says blind cruise‑ship passengers, even those traveling alone, are no more prone to accidents than any other passenger. "This is simply about being able to enjoy the cruise on the same terms and with the same freedom as any other passenger on board," he says.

     Not all cruise lines treat blind passengers the way NCL allegedly did. Last week, for instance, Costa Cruise Lines hosted forty members of the National Association of Blind Merchants aboard one of its Fort Lauderdale, Florida‑based cruises. The businessmen and -women were holding their midyear conference during a Caribbean cruise aboard the Costa Victoria.

Association President Kevan Worley has never been on a cruise but says that his group neither sought nor desired any special accommodation. "Costa seems to be treating us like guests," he says. "We expect businesses, restaurants, movie theaters, and cruise lines to treat us with the same amount of respect and dignity as anyone else," Mr. Worley says.

     Don Morris, also a member of the blind merchants association, agrees. Mr. Morris has been on a dozen cruises over the years, including a twenty-one‑day sail from Italy to Argentina last fall. "In all our travels, we have never had a problem," he says. "The fact that we don't see is the only thing about us that is unique."

     What if there were an emergency aboard the ship? Morris answers immediately: "I would be willing to help those people who need my help." He adds, "We go through the same lifeboat drill and life‑jacket stuff as everyone else."

                         

                         

 

From the President's Mail Basket:

               Reflections on Descriptive Videos

                        by Marc Maurer

                         

     From the Editor: Several years ago a number of people (notably WGBH‑TV in Boston) developed the Descriptive Video Service, which describes visual aspects of films on a separate channel that does not interfere with the audio channel of the film. This service is intended to provide the blind with enough information to permit blind film viewers to understand what is being presented in visual form only.

     Some blind people have felt that this service should be made a federal requirement. The National Federation of the Blind has supported descriptive video, but it has consistently opposed the notion that audio‑described films and television programming should be required by law. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), at the request of a small group of blind people who are apparently more interested in entertainment than information, adopted a rule to require a certain amount of descriptive video on network television as a matter of law. The Federation filed a complaint in Federal Court opposing this regulation. Now a letter has come to President Maurer asking why this was done. This is his response:

                         

April 10, 2001

                         

Dear ______:

     Recently you sent me the following e-mail letter:

                         

Hello,

     I have recently been made aware that you have joined the NAB [National Association of Broadcasters], NCTA [National Cable Television Association] and MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] in a suit to prevent FCC [Federal Communications Commission] DVS [Descriptive Video Service] rules from going into effect. I find this troublesome. Mainly due to the fact that it is you, the NFB, that has underwritten the past inaugurals for DVS on PBS. So in light of that let me make sure I have this right. You are fighting against something you support? So then you would be filing suit against your own beliefs. I would appreciate any response.

                         

Sincerely,

_______

                         

Dear _______:

     This will respond to the questions you raise about the descriptive video argument, which is being so badly misrepresented on the Internet. The National Federation of the Blind is supporting a policy that was adopted and subsequently reaffirmed after thorough discussion at our National Conventions. This policy seeks to advance freedom of expression and equal access to information.

     Let me begin by observing that the National Federation of the Blind is sometimes controversial (from the point of view of the less well‑informed); it is sometimes determined (those who do not like the positions we take would say mule‑headed); but it is never foolish. We do not fight things we support. There are those who say the NFB has, with venality aforethought, joined the motion picture magnates to fight the blind. Sometimes those painting this dire picture allege or suggest that the Federation has taken this mangy position with the prospect of gain in mind-‑financial reward. Those making such charges either do not have all the facts or are willingly misrepresenting the truth. They may think the Federation has as little principle as they do.

     As you point out in your e-mail, the Federation has supported descriptive video in the past, both politically and financially. The organization has never adopted a policy opposing this service and has encouraged its development and promulgation. Every year at the Convention, we provide space and time for the presentation of audio‑described movies, and we print information about the presentation in the formal Convention Agenda. Furthermore, we have supported the service in other ways.

     The policy of the Federation is that we believe matters of commercial interest and matters of information which are presented visually for the public at large should be provided in audible form. However, we do not believe that audible descriptions of entertainment should be mandated by law. The Motion Picture Association is apparently arguing that audible descriptions of visual material (regardless of its importance or purpose) cannot be required because to do so would violate the First Amendment. We believe that audible descriptions are sometimes of sufficient importance that they must be required to give equal access to information for the blind. However, we do not believe everything that is visual must be described. We think access to information is essential as a matter of civil rights, but access to entertainment is not. We also believe that there should be room for freedom of expression.

     It is an oft‑repeated claim that a picture is worth a thousand words. If this is so, descriptive video cannot hope to provide more than a tiny fraction of that which is presented visually. Consequently we in the NFB make a distinction between straight information and artistic presentation. Information such as telephone numbers, names of individuals, warnings about impending bad weather, and the like should be articulated. We think the law should require this. Other presentations, which are artistic in character, should be verbalized if we can persuade the artistic presenters to do it. We believe that artists should have freedom to express themselves. We believe it is not reasonable to demand that Leonardo Da Vinci make an attempt to describe the Mona Lisa so that blind people can get the same impression that sighted people do. Visual art is by its nature visual. Describing it may have value, but the law should not demand it.

     For an analogy consider the situation of the deaf. To provide a visual expression of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with sufficient detail to give a deaf person the same experience that a hearing person gets, would be an impossibility. It would be possible, perhaps, to perform the Fifth Symphony, run it through a synthesizer, and display it as patterns of light on a video screen. However, the essence of the experience would be altered. To demand that an orchestra go to the trouble and expense of displaying the Fifth Symphony visually is unreasonable.

     We believe that prime-time TV entertainment and movies are presentations of artistic talent. We believe it is highly desirable to describe them so that the blind, along with the sighted, may enjoy them. However, we think freedom of expression should permit the artist (if the artist is particularly boneheaded) to leave the description out. In other words, we do not think artistic expression should be dictated by law.

     As you can tell, the National Federation of the Blind is considerably more sophisticated than those who have been telling the public that we don't know what we are doing. Our thousands of members in Convention assembled discussed the position the Federation should take and voted to adopt our current policy more than once. We have taken this position because we recognize that, for every accommodation demanded, a price will necessarily be paid in money, in acceptance of the blind in the greater society, in the influence blind people can have, and in good will. A balance must be maintained which gives the blind what we need for equal access without disadvantages that outweigh it. We of the National Federation of the Blind have adopted our policy with this in mind.

     We have filed a lawsuit in Federal Court to demand that essential information be provided auditorily. Our suit also demands that the FCC not misapply the law by saying that entertainment cannot exist unless it is described. It begins with prime-time TV programming, moves on to the night club, becomes a part of Little League baseball, and expands to all of the millions of visual displays that people watch with such enjoyment. It is important to include blind people in all activities of society. It is equally important to do so in a way that provides blind people with the characteristics that make acceptance and integration possible.

                         

                                                    Sincerely,

                                        Marc Maurer, President

                              NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                         

                         

      Recent NFB Resolutions Concerning Descriptive Video

                         

     Resolutions establishing the policy of the Federation regarding descriptive video were adopted in 1996 and 1250. We reprint them to give perspective:

                         

                      Resolution 1996-04

                         

     WHEREAS, presentation of information by audio-visual means is now a vital part of modern life; and

     WHEREAS, audio description of visual images is a service that adds oral description of visual images to television and movie programs; and

     WHEREAS, audio description of visual images can be quite useful by adding to the entertainment value of the presentation for blind viewers; and

     WHEREAS, the Federal Communications Commission is consider­ing the extent to which audio description should be required in television programming; and

     WHEREAS, although audio description may at times make the presentation more enjoyable, this fact alone does not necessarily justify a requirement by the federal government that virtually all audio/visual programming must contain audio descriptions of visual images; and

     WHEREAS, a requirement by the federal government for audio description in virtually all television programming would place an undue emphasis on entertainment as an issue for the blind and tend to draw public attention away from the real and cruel forms of economic discrimination and exclusion of blind people from normal integration into society which exist: Now, therefore,

     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled this fifth day of July, 1996, in the City of Anaheim, California, that this organization support voluntary use of audio description in television programming but oppose the imposition of audio description as a federal mandate; and

      BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, to the extent that a mandate is justified, we urge the Federal Communications Commission to require both audio and visual presentation of essential information for the public such as warnings of hazardous weather or other emergency conditions.

                         

                      Resolution 1250-05

                         

     WHEREAS, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a rule requiring the four networks to offer descriptions of a minimum amount of entertainment programming per quarter, averaging approximately four hours of prime-time entertainment programming per week, provided through the Separate Audio Programming (SAP) audio channel; and

                         

     WHEREAS, the blind are routinely denied access to textual information flashed on the screen such as emergency weather updates, news bulletins scrolled along the bottom of the screen, sports scores, program guides, phone numbers in advertisements, the identities of speakers during news programs, and other data not otherwise read aloud; and

                         

     WHEREAS, making such textual information accessible to the blind in a standardized form through the secondary audio channel would be a relatively easy and inexpensive process to develop and automate if that specific outcome was firmly and universally required by the FCC; and

                         

     WHEREAS, it is doubtful that most networks will address the issue of access to on-screen textual information under the FCC's proposed mandate, which requires only that description be provided for entertainment programs; and

                         

     WHEREAS, the vast array of broadcast information currently printed and not voiced is information far more vital and valuable for America's television viewers than is the entertainment programming targeted by the FCC proposal; and

                         

     WHEREAS, the FCC should handle first things first and move to entertainment programming only after civic, safety, and health-related information including advertising is routinely provided to viewers without sight: Now, therefore,

                         

     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled this eighth day of July, 1250, in the City of Atlanta, Georgia, that this organization call upon the Federal Communications Commission to modify its currently proposed and narrowly focused mandate for descriptive video in favor of one that would prioritize making important on-screen textual information universally available to America's blind television viewers through a standardized audio format.

                         

                         

         American Council of the Blind Adds Bad Taste

                 to Bigotry and Self-Deception

by Barbara Pierce

                         

            The Braille Monitor does not ordinarily reproduce documents from the American Council of the Blind because there is little of value in them, and the Monitor serves as the magazine of record for happenings in the field of work with the blind. Those who wish to know what is occurring in our field routinely check the Monitor.

            However, Charlie Crawford, Executive Director of the American Council of the Blind, has circulated material which merits publication, not for the content of information it provides, but as an explanation of the character of democracy and standard of conduct within the organization he purports to represent.

            Within the field of work with the blind, the desirability of cooperation among entities dealing with blindness is almost a constant theme. Even officials of the American Council of the Blind urge that cooperation occur. However, their notion of cooperation involves having other people permit them to pretend to be the leaders in the field and adopt their point of view. When this does not happen (and very few have been hoodwinked by the histrionics of this small organization), ACB officials sometimes write with vituperation. They engage in name-calling, and they add bad taste to vindictiveness.

            It is worthy of note that the ACB has recently engaged in concerted attacks upon Federation programs such as the NEWSLINE for the Blind® network and the National Research and Training Institute for the Blind. It would be difficult to comprehend the depth of hatred certain ACB officials possess for the Federation without reading it in their own words. Consequently, we reprint Charlie Crawford's letter along with an accompanying press release to illustrate that hatred.

            The Monitor is careful to research the truth of the statements it reports. Much error appears in what we are reprinting here, but we do not print it for the purpose of asserting that it is true.

            The ACB repeatedly declares that it is democratic. Nevertheless, it is clear from correspondence emanating from its offices that the elected officials of ACB do not control or direct the organization. Rather Charlie Crawford, who has been hired to serve as executive director, is in control. So much for democracy; so much for being represented by people who are accountable to the electorate.

            One of the more curious arguments contained in this material reveals much about the internal workings of the ACB. Charlie Crawford argues that the leadership of the National Federation of the Blind takes positions not supported by the membership. He urges that the membership rise in opposition to the leadership. The portrayal that he offers is that the leadership is out of touch with the membership and that the leadership is taking a position unsupported by the membership of the Federation. Others have jumped to this unwarranted conclusion in the past. Perhaps the ACB is willing to take positions that its own membership would not support; however, the NFB develops its policies in Convention assembled and counts upon its President to carry them out with vigor.

            Therefore, and in the role of magazine of record, we offer Monitor readers the following documents, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling errors, exactly as we received them. The following e-mail-circulated message was written by Charles Crawford, in his official capacity and conveying his official views concerning a disagreement of policy between the Federation and the Council. Readers are requested to note Mr. Crawford's choice of terms and tone. The Federation's position on this issue is well known; Mr. Crawford's capacity for vituperation may not be.

                                                                   

From: Charles Crawford

                                                                   

            The trust has been broken. ACB has confirmed that the National Federation of the Blind has entered litigation against the requirements for described video on television from the  Federal Communications Commission. We have good reason to anticipate that the corporate entertainment industrial complex of the National Association of Broadcasters, The Cable Television Association, and the Motion Picture Association of America have or will soon have taken the same or similar action.

            This contemptuous and irresponsible assault on our national blindness community is made only worse by the participation of the Federation. Whatever respect may have existed for the NFB, can no longer be said to exist after this outright and arrogant betrayal of the interests of the clear majority of blind people who simply have sought to gain access to visual information denied us before the advent of video description technology.

            This repulsive treachery to our own community must be seen for what it really is. No amount of philosophical excuse making by the Federation can change it. Whether they did it for money, for pride, for the continuation of their belief that they alone know what is good for blind people and we have to accept their edicts, (whether we like them or not), does not change their treasonous behavior in the least.

            While ACB cannot tell the Federation how to conduct its affairs; we must hold them accountable for their actions. Their membership must now take cognizance of what their organization is doing. We can only hope that this latest example of complete disregard and disrespect for blind people will finally cause the membership of the Federation to rise up in outrage and disgust and demand a complete house cleaning of NFB policy and behavior. Otherwise, they will continue their reckless course of "our way or no way" and its shameful results. Their membership will be then seen as nothing more than unthinking followers of a discredited and foul organization that has lost touch with who we are as blind people and is willing to sell out the integrity of the very people it claims to represent.

            Not their buildings, not their money, not their propaganda, nor all their false self aggrandizement, can hide their obvious contempt for all that we blind people have done in the face of their opposition to secure our own well being and improve the quality of life for our community. Unless they make major changes, to reform their shameful ways; they will be known by all who seriously care about the well being of blind people as, "The National Federation of the Blind; changing what it means to be ethical."

                                                                   

                                                                                                                                 Charlie Crawford.

                                                                   

            That was Charlie Crawford's message; now here is the press release the ACB circulated:

                                                                   

                                               American Council of the blind Condemns

                                                       entertainment industry's Greed

                             Denounces Federation's Failure to Support Access to Information

                                                          for People Who Are Blind

                                                                   

            Reaction was swift from the American Council of the Blind upon learning that the National Association of Broadcasters, The Cable Television Association, and the Motion Picture Association of America had initiated litigation to overturn a government requirement that the television industry make a portion of their programming accessible to visually impaired and blind people, through a secondary channel that can be turned on by viewers. "After fifteen years of struggle simply to gain access to the same programming that all other Americans enjoy; we can only conclude that this assault on the rights of people who are blind and visually impaired by corporate entertainment has everything to do with their own greed and nothing to do with any principles of decency," said Paul Edwards; President of the Blind council. Edwards continued, " As a group we have few financial resources, but our tens of thousands of members have the conviction that we matter enough as people to defend our rights to information from an industry engaged in selling its entertainment to the general public. We will fight this at every turn."

            " ACB Executive Director Charlie Crawford angrily added, To add insult to injury, we understand that the industry has enlisted the aid of the National Federation of the Blind, as a related plaintiff in their suit. We can only view the Federation as a traitor to our community. We urge their members to exercise their rights as thinking citizens and people who wish to participate fully in their communities, by refusing to acquiesce to the will of their leadership, which appears to be more co-opted by industry than motivated to serve the needs of people who are blind."

            Crawford urged members of the NFB to contact their leaders to express their disapproval of the organization's unwillingness to support the access to information which video descriptive services represent. "

            The battles began last year when the Federal Communications Commission considered the request of a coalition of groups, including people who are blind and visually impaired and their advocates, to require that programming on television be made accessible to people who cannot see what's happening on their television screens, through an inexpensive technology called video description. The technology allows for the creation of a secondary soundtrack, where a narrator describes visual elements of a program during the natural pauses that occur in dialog. In this way, a person who cannot perceive the visual elements of a program or performance can gain a genuine understanding of what is happening and fully enjoy the event. All this comes through the secondary audio channel that is already available on stereo television sets. Making the secondary soundtrack available will be even easier as digital television comes onto the scene.

            Both the industry and the National Federation of the Blind have argued that the television industry should not be compelled by the federal government to provide accessibility through video description. Others, including the American Council of the Blind, point out that the technology has been available since the early 1980s, but the industry has done next to nothing to make their programming accessible to people who are blind.

            "Blind people are tired of waiting for access to entertainment and information that oth