Kindle Electronic Reader Discriminates Against Blind People Who Can't Read

Imagine you create a great new electronic device for people who read books.  Rather than carrying heavy books around, the consumer can simply download them to a single device which fits into a pocket book or briefcase.  Imagine that you created a version of this device with a larger screen that will be particularly useful to students who would no longer have to carry heavy textbooks, and pay hundreds of dollars for them.  What a great benefit to humanity -- efficient and easy-to-use for students who can read; and ecologically beneficial by eliminating massive amounts of paper.  Unfortunately, your government says it is illegal for use by colleges because it discriminates against people who can't read.

Amazon created the Kindle DX particularly for readers of newspapers, textbooks, and other large-format documents.  Amazon reached agreements with several universities to, in effect, serve as test sites for the use of the Kindle DX in academic environments.  Universities started to create programs that would take particular advantage of the Kindle.   Arizona State, for example, announced plans to give students in an honors course on the history of human culture Kindle DXs with 30 required books pre-loaded.  A blind student and two national organizations for the blind complained to the Justice Department that use of the Kindle violated the American with Disabilities Act because blind people couldn't read the electronic reader.  Never mind that the Kindle has a text-to-speech feature, which would actually read the book to a blind person.  As a result, four universities this week reached settlement agreements with the Department of Justice, agreeing that they will not "purchase, recommend, or promote use of the Kindle DX ... unless the devices are fully accessible to students who are blind and have low vision."

For a good article on this, see the following from CNet -- http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10434512-1.html?tag=mncol;txt#comments.  Read the comments, also. Several note the blind have devices that convert text in books to words that they can hear. Here are a couple of the better comments:

"I cannot begin to express how stupid I think this move is. This is like recommending that we not use paper books because the blind cannot read those. Can students sue these organizations for the strain of having to carry heavy textbooks? I'm very much in favor of finding solutions to help blind or otherwise handicapped individuals access information, but it should never be done at the expense of introducing new technology that replaces other technologies (e.g., physical books) that have the same problems. It's not as though we took a step backward... but we did now with these lawsuits and settlements."

"For all the people pointing out that normal books are available for the blind--great, go get them. Having an e-text is another option for people who want it and it works for them. If it doesn't work for you, the same text is available in a print edition that you can hook up whatever braile device is needed; that option didn't go away just because some students are getting a new gadget.

Also, this isn't comparable to affirmative action, so don't even go there. I will argue that this is a terrible way of punishing the majority in favor of the minority because lots of things aren't accessible to all sorts of people with disabilities and if we stopped allowing new technology because someone may not be able to use it, we might as well give up on getting anything new. On the flip side, lots of technologies evolve after they are proven successful in the market place and end up opening new worlds to some people with disabilities."


DOJ rejected the Kindle's text-to-speech functionality because its menus were not accessible to the blind. Hopefully, Amazon can improve this, so that the DOJ will get off its back, and the vast majority of students who could actually use the Kindle will benefit from its existence.