Posts In: Advocacy

The National Federation of the Blind is committed to participating in forums like the M-Enabling Summit that foster independence through accessible technology and design.

This might come as a surprise to you, but on Election Day, there are actually a few things we can all agree on. We all want the right to a private ballot, for example. We all want to ensure accurate election results. And we all want to eliminate errors that could potentially make our votes invalid. These are some of the benefits of using ballot marking devices, or BMDs.

Blind actors are rarely given the opportunity to play blind characters in movies, on TV, or on stage.

On December 12, I wrote a letter to fifty of the country’s top chemistry programs with American Chemical Society membership to alert the universities to accessibility barriers perpetuated by the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education Examinations Institute (ACS Exams).

Last summer, I wrote about actions by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that substantively curtailed the rights of students and of organizations like the National Federation of the Blind to seek remedies for discrimination by colleges and universities.

The National Federation of the Blind is working to increase the accessibility of medical technologies so that we can live the lives we want.

We've certainly come a long way, but voting still isn’t completely free of barriers for blind people. One such barrier can be transportation to the polling place. This can be a particularly troublesome issue for people who live in cities or rural areas that don’t have adequate public transportation.

Last week, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed S.2559, the Marrakesh Treaty Implementation Act of 2018, which amends our domestic copyright law to comply with the Marrakesh Treaty that our Senate ratified at the end of June.

As part of our NFB summer internship program, we had the pleasure of spending two weeks working with John Paré and the rest of the Advocacy and Policy department.

The United States Senate today provided its advice and consent for ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. The chamber also approved the treaty's implementing legislation (S. 2559), which will make modest adjustments to US copyright law to fully comply with the treaty.