The D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled that the government is legally obligated to make paper money distinctive for the blind, under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 USC 794. Essentially, the Court of Appeals has decided that the blind do not have meaningful access to money because, unlike a number of European countries, we have a single size of bill, and there is no way for a blind person by touch to figure out which bills are which (unlike coins).
As sympathetic as I am to the situation that a blind person has on this, I cringe a bit at how the courts increasingly find rights that have until recently, not been recognized as rights as all--such as the right of the blind to be able to tell a $1 bill from a $10 bill. If Congress were to pass a law requiring such a change to our currency, I would be very supportive. Changing the size of the bills would be very expensive for current bill accepting machines, but one clever commenter over at Volokh Conspiracy came up with a very clever solution:
When first presented with this a year or so ago, a simple and effective solution popped into mind: security threads. Currently, US bills have a security thread running vertically through them (across the short way). It would seem to be a simple solution to make these threads heavier so that they could be felt, and vary the location and quantity to denote value.
For example:
a single thread at one end is $1, 2=$5, 3=$10
a single thread in the middle is $20, 2=$50, 3=$100
The bills stay the same size, don't have odd edges that may be prone to tearing or other damage, are easily distinguished by touch, and are (nominally) more secure from counterfeiting (as specific information could be encoded in the threads).
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