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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Fellow Federationists,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>All hands are needed in New York City on Wednesday, August 26. We need to deliver a message to the New York City Public School System that they must not discriminate against blind students. Purchasing Amazon electronic textbooks will impede the progress of blind students in obtaining an equal education. We will be leaving from the National Center at 11am. We will be protesting from 4:30-6, then we will be attending the meeting, so the return will be 11:30 pm. Please send me a note off list if you can attend. Please read president Riccobono’s message below about this important endeavor. We are counting on you. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>“Once again, Amazon, Inc. is trying to push its inaccessible technology into public schools, despite our years of advocacy and clear warnings against the adoption of inaccessible technology by the United States Departments of Education and Justice. <a name="OLE_LINK4"></a><a name="OLE_LINK3"></a>In this case, blind students throughout the New York City public school system will be denied an equal education if the city goes through with a proposed $30 million deal under which Amazon would construct an electronic storefront for New York City schools and become the primary provider of electronic textbooks and related educational materials. Unfortunately, Amazon e-books inhibit the ability of blind students to access complex material like tables and equations and the ability to easily navigate through a book, among other significant accessibility barriers. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We have a chance to stop this deal. The school system’s Panel for Educational Policy, which has the final say on the deal, will meet next Wednesday, August 26, to vote on it; and blind people must be there in force to let the panel members and the public know that this is a bad deal for blind students and faculty and, therefore, for New York City schools. We must tell the panel that a vote for this deal is an outrageous act of deliberate discrimination against blind students and an equally outrageous and deliberate violation of federal law. We are therefore asking that you come to the meeting for a good old National Federation of the Blind demonstration, the kind that we can do like no one else! Following the demonstration, we will enter the auditorium where the meeting is taking place and participate respectfully in the meeting so that we can encourage the school board to do the right thing and shut down this “Amazon Fail!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>Sharon Maneki, </b>President<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>National Federation of the Blind of Maryland<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>410-715-9596<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>