Pluck out their eyes

A recent column in the Washington Examiner by Byron York resurrected a year-old controversy over the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division’s warnings to several universities over the use of Kindles for class textbooks.

The issue?

The blind could not use the conveniences of e-readers — paperless, lightweight, text-to-speech, searchable, electronic notes; therefore, under the august wisdom of the egalitarians at Thomas Perez’s department, no one could, because that would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

York quoted Perez addressing a recent House committee, "We acted swiftly to respond to complaints we received about the use of the Amazon Kindle. We must remain vigilant to ensure that as new devices are introduced, people with disabilities are not left behind."

That’s right, had ADA been around there would be no radio, lest the deaf be left behind, and no TV, of course, lest the blind be left behind.

According to a July 2009 blog posting on ZDNet, working from a USA Today story, as part of an experiment, students in an honors course at Arizona State University were to get Kindles with the 30 required books for the course pre-loaded. The books alone normally cost the students nearly $500, but they would get the Kindle and the e-books for about half that and get to keep the Kindle.

The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind objected, saying the experiment was discriminatory. Justice agreed.

According to AP, a settlement was reached in January.

We hear the administration is about to announce the universal Procrustean solution: All students must have their eyes plucked out. This will be followed by the solution for the problem of some students being smarter and work harder than others: soma for all. Next, because some are  prettier than others: burqas for everyone, men and women.

It is a wonderful Brave New World.