Bankruptcy of a System: The Politics of Accreditation

Bankruptcy of a System: The Politics of Accreditation

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Bankruptcy of a System:
The Politics of Accreditation

The history of the organized blind movement, according to one of its leaders,
might well be seen as a confirmation of the challenge-and-response theory of
social evolution propounded some decades ago by the British historian Arnold
J. Toynbee which held that the rise and fall of civilizations has corresponded
to their ability to meet successive challenges, from without or within, by appropriately
vigorous responses. So long as the response is more energetic than the challenge, said Toynbee, a civilization may be said to be in the ascendant. As with societies
so with social movements, added Kenneth Jernigan in a presidential speech; so long as the organized blind remain vigilant against the forces opposed to
them, capable of meeting any challenge with an immediate response, for so long
will they be a dominant factor within their own sphere of action.

After fifty years of continuous challenge and response, it was clear by 1990
that the National Federation of the Blind was still ascending as a movement
and expanding as a force in the special sphere occupied by the blindness system.
More and more that system and its constituent agencies had come to recognize
this reality and to respect the Federation, if not for its virtue then for its
strength. But there were still pockets of resistance in the system (rear-guard
elements like those dominating most of the sheltered workshops) which interpreted
the progressive philosophy of the NFB as a threat to their very existence. These
reactionary elements were neither as numerous nor as formidable as they once
had been; but they were as stubborn as ever in their opposition and as determined
in their efforts to retain or regain custody over the lives of those they still
perceived as their dependent wards.
The present chapter relates the story of one such agency challenge and of the
massive response which was mustered against it. That response, beginning in
the sixties, took the form of an aggressive and sustained campaign to reform
or retire a self-appointed watchdog group calling itself the National Accreditation
Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC). From
the time of its origin in the sixties when it was known as the Commission on
Standards and Accreditation of Services for the Blind (COMSTAC), NAC operated
effectively as a front organization for the American Foundation for the Blind
and other agencies of the blindness system in their effort to extend control
over all those blind persons (numbering in the tens of thousands) who fell within
the network of public and private service. While the ostensible purpose of NAC
was to provide a neutral and objective arbiter of professional standards for
the field, its practical intent was to hold a whiphand over service agencies
of all kinds through the arbitrary power of accreditation in other words, to
reward its friends (by granting approval) and punish its enemies (by withholding
the prize).

The confrontation between the organized blind and the agency known as NAC may be dated from November 1965, when a national conference was held in New York City by a newly formed group
known as the Commission on Standards and Accreditation of Services for the Blind (COMSTAC). The New York conference climaxed two years
of elaborate planning on the part of the American Foundation for
the Blind, which had conceived the idea of COMSTAC and was its
primary source of financial support. (The Foundation initially
contributed $225,000 over four years to the project, to which additional
funds were later provided by the U.S. Office of Vocational
Rehabilitation and, to a much lesser extent, by private foundations.) Some 300 professional workers and administrators took part in the
four-day meeting, at which the reports of a dozen technical committees
were presented for approval. The announced purpose of the conference, with its massive panoply of professional celebrities and task-force committees, was to create a new and independent agency to administer an ongoing, voluntary system of accreditation of
local and state agencies for the blind on a national basis. The impression sought to be conveyed was one of consensus and
harmony on the part of all interests in the field of work for the blind. Most such groups were indeed prominently in attendance: the American Association of Workers for the Blind, the National Rehabilitation Association, National Industries for the Blind,
the state commissions, public and private welfare agencies virtually the entire gamut of professional organizations with an interest
in the lives of blind people. The only concerned group which was conspicuous by its almost complete absence not only in the conference itself but in the numerous preliminary meetings at
which standards were initially proposed and formulated was the
organized blind.

The idea of establishing an independent accrediting system for all groups
doing work with the blind which led to the formation of COMSTAC and its successor
agency, NAC was not as novel as the conveners of the New York conference pretended
to suppose. A decade earlier the American Association of Workers for the Blind
had attempted to gain control over the field of services by instituting a seal
of good practices, to be obtained as a reward by agencies conforming to the
AAWB's expectations of professional conduct. However, of the several hundred
agencies and organizations in the field only 20 or 30 applied for and received
the seal; and of those that did, more than a few were regarded by the blind
themselves as backward in their philosophy and unproductive in their enterprise.
After a short time this counterpart to the Good Housekeeping seal was quietly
shelved by the AAWB.

Apparently profiting from that earlier failure to impose its view of professionalism
and its system of control upon the entire field, the American Foundation for
the Blind moved prudently to give the impression of independence and autonomy
to COMSTAC. The 22 persons named to the commission came from a broad range of
professions, many of them outside the field of work with the blind and most
of them prestigious. Among the members were public officials, business executives,
philanthropists, academicians, and civic leaders. Among them also were appointees
of the Foundation from within the field, high-ranking officials of agencies
doing work with the blind. Not among them, however, were any representatives
of the blind themselves; not a single commissioner came from a membership organization
of blind people. Moreover, the paid staff director and moving force of COMSTAC
was one of the Foundation's own Alexander Handel, Foundation insider and employee,
who left his job with the Foundation for full-time employment with COMSTAC and
later with NAC.

Even before the 1965 conference in New York, the organized blind had reason
to be apprehensive concerning the character of the proposed accrediting agency
and the quality of its standards. In its preliminary phase COMSTAC was divided
into a dozen specialized subcommittees, each involving hundreds of people across
the country and further subdivided into smaller groups. While a few spokesmen
for organizations of the blind and the many agencies in the field who did not
want to be controlled by the American Foundation gained admission to deliberations
at the local level, their dissent from the prevailing tone of affirmation went
virtually unnoticed. In those rare instances when they were not excluded by
the contrived selection process and were in the majority, the blind and the
agency dissenters were still effectively neutralized by the heavy-handled tactics
and maneuvers of the presiding COMSTAC officials. For example, at the 1965 annual
convention of the American Association of Workers for the Blind, where discussion
of the COMSTAC standards was invited, only the discussion leaders had copies
of the standards, and a concerted attempt on the part of home teachers to seek
a vote on standards affecting their specialty which seemed certain to be negative
was overridden by the chair.

It was for this reason that Jacobus tenBroek, then President of the National
Federation of the Blind, emphasized in his 1966 convention address the distinction
between what he called agencies for the blind and agencies against the blind. Today in this country there are agencies which choose to work not for the blind
but with them as collaborators, colleagues, and co-equals, he said. There
are agencies that affect toward us a posture of indifference and a mask of neutrality.
There are agencies which regard it as their special mission to fight the blind
at every turn and with every weapon. There are agencies such as a number of
sheltered shops which believe it is their function to control, suppress, and
sweat the blind.

Now comes COMSTAC, tenBroek went on. The latest, greatest, and most ominous
of all agency efforts to dominate the field to the exclusion of the organized
blind. COMSTAC's 22 autonomous members for so they describe themselves are self-appointed;
its tasks are self-assigned; its authority is self-arrogated; its special knowledge
is self-proclaimed; its actions are self-serving. The standards it presumes
to set for others are misconceived, misdirected, and miserable. Its outlook
is paternalistic and condescending. Its interest in the content of programs
is incidental if not accidental.

President tenBroek made it clear in this address that his criticism was not
directed at the principle of seeking an improvement of services to the blind. We would and do join in every legitimate effort to improve the qualifications
of workers for the blind that is, to insure that they become more wise, more
perceptive, more humane, and more imbued with sympathetic understanding. We
would and do join in every reasonable effort to improve programs for the blind
that is, to see to it that they liberate our people from self-imposed and socially
imposed restrictions, to restore them to normal lives and normal livelihoods.

TenBroek concluded his speech with the declaration that: For all its bright
and shiny newness, COMSTAC in reality is obsolete. Its philosophy of goods and
services derives from an earlier age in which the recipients at the end of the
line were simply human objects to whom things were done. Those were the good
old days, before the revolution in welfare. But the revolution has come and
has brought with it recognition of the recipient not as a passive object of
professional manipulation but as a responsible participant in the making of
decisions that affect his life and the administering of programs that bear upon
his welfare. Of all this COMSTAC is unaware and uninterested.

In the years following that official assessment of COMSTAC by the leader of
the organized blind, a number of events occurred which served both to confuse
and to sharpen the issues surrounding the idea of accreditation for agencies
in the blindness field. COMSTAC was itself dissolved and immediately reconstituted
(or cloned, as someone said) in the form of NAC which proceeded to declare its
autonomy and independence from the network of agencies which had fathered and
funded it. Meanwhile the National Federation of the Blind went through its own
transition in the late sixties as Kenneth Jernigan succeeded Dr. tenBroek in
the presidency; but the succession signaled no change in the NFB's policy of
vigilant appraisal of agency activities on the accreditation front. In 1971,
five years after Dr. tenBroek's critical address on the subject, President Jernigan
submitted a comprehensive Report to the members of the National Federation
of the Blind on COMSTAC and NAC, which reviewed the recent history of developments
in the field and concluded with a blistering attack on the integrity, credibility,
and viability of the watchdog known as NAC. Under the title "NAC: What
Price Accreditation" Jernigan penetrated the screen of professional rhetoric
surrounding the role of NAC and exposed the hidden wires and batteries linking
it with its parent agencies. He concluded with a warning to Federationists to
continue to insist on a voice in the functioning, as well as the accrediting,
of any and all programs affecting their lives. The text of his report follows:

NAC: WHAT PRICE ACCREDITATION—A REPORT
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND ON COMSTAC AND NAC

The developments which next occurred, in the period following that report
to the membership, amply confirmed the fears of the organized blind concerning
the character and purposes of NAC. The events of one day in particular which
happened to fall on December 7, 1971 involved both a confrontation and a conclusion:
i.e., a confrontation of the principal antagonists and a conclusion of the first
phase of NFB-NAC relations. The drama of that fateful encounter in Manhattan,
and the context of events surrounding it, was later narrated in detail by Kenneth
Jernigan in a special edition of the Braille Monitor (August 1972) devoted
to the NAC controversy. Under the heading, "NAC: Response to Bigotry,"
the NFB President announced the ending of his personal relationship with NAC
and the beginning of a new Federation policy and tactic. Here is the article
in its entirety:

NAC: RESPONSE TO BIGOTRY

by Kenneth Jernigan

December 7,
1941, said Franklin Roosevelt, is a day that will live in infamy. To
the blind of this country December 7, 1971, is also a day that will live in infamy. It was then that
the Board of the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) met at the Prince
George Hotel in New York City and finally and irrevocably showed, for
all the world to see, what kind of organization NAC really is.

Members of the organized blind movement will remember the appearance of the
NAC representatives at our convention in Houston last July. Mr. Arthur Brandon,
president of NAC, and Mr. Alexander Handel, executive director of the organization,
spoke to us about NAC's purpose and objectives. Although we were in profound
disagreement with the way NAC is structured, its methods of operation, and its
basic premises, we treated its representatives with courtesy and respect. There
were no personal attacks and no aspersions.

Prior to our Houston convention Mr. Brandon had first accepted the invitation
to come and then, when he realized questions would be asked and a discussion
would occur, changed his mind on the grounds that he did not wish to engage
in debate. After it was pointed out to him that NAC had received hundreds of
thousands of tax dollars and thus had some responsibility to appear and give
an accounting to the largest group of consumers of its services in the nation,
Mr. Brandon again changed his mind and once more agreed to come but only subsequent
to considerable publicity. Obviously, he felt embarrassed and ill at ease at
having to appear at our convention.

At this stage (apparently judging me by himself and, therefore feeling that
I, too, would find a confrontation embarrassing) Mr. Brandon asked me as NFB
President to present the views of the organized blind at the December, 1971,
NAC Board meeting. He assured me that I would be given courteous treatment and
heard with respect. Of course, NAC's exaggerated view of its power to inspire
awe is not shared by the Federation, and the prospect was not at all embarrassing.
Rather, the invitation should have come when NAC was first established. As Federationists
know, I accepted the invitation.

Under date of July 13, 1971, Mr. Brandon wrote to me in a tone and manner that
showed he had learned nothing from our convention. He seemed to be saying, We have all had an opportunity to vent our feelings. Now let's settle back into
the old rut of `NAC-as-usual.'

Under date of July 20, 1971, I replied to Mr. Brandon, attempting once again
to penetrate his bubble of complacency. I said to him in part:

The tone of your letter (especially that part which says as we look ahead
we must search for ways of working together effectively) indicates a conception
of what occurred at Houston and of the attitudes and intentions of the blind
not, in my opinion, in accord with the facts. At Houston we did not simply have
a friendly little debate which allowed people to blow off steam. We did not
meet before that audience of a thousand people simply to exchange ideas and
go back home to business as usual.

What that audience was telling you, and what I have been trying to tell NAC
for several years, is simply this: The blind of this nation are not going to
allow all of their service programs to come under one uniform system of control
with the tune called by the American Foundation for the Blind and the accompaniment
played by HEW. The blind are not opposed to reasonable and proper accreditation
far from it. The blind do not oppose good agencies, government or private, which
are doing good work. However, the Federation does not believe that NAC is properly
constituted, that its standards are reasonable, that it is responsive to the
aspirations and desires of consumers, or that it is a positive factor (as now
structured) in the field of work with the blind.

Mr. Brandon made no response to my letter, and I prepared to go to New York
in December. Under date of November 29, 1971, Dr. Patrick Peppe and Adrienne
Asch, members of one of the local New York City affiliates of the Federation,
wrote to Mr. Alexander Handel, executive director of NAC, to ask that they and
other interested blind persons be permitted to attend the December 7 NAC meeting
as observers. Their letter was courteous and respectful. It made no demands
or threats; it only requested. The full text of the letter reads:

Dear Mr. Handel:

As consumers of services of agencies serving the blind, we would like to be
present at the December 7 meeting of NAC. Since NAC was established to be the
accrediting authority for agency service, our lives are vitally affected by
its deliberations and actions. Therefore, we ask that we and others both the
organized blind and the unaffiliated but concerned consumers of services be
permitted to observe this meeting to learn more about the current policies and
plans of your organization.

We would appreciate hearing from you by letter as soon as possible. Thank you
very much for your cooperation.
Yours truly,
Adrienne Asch, Secretary
Patrick V. Peppe, Member, Executive
Committee, The Metropolitan Federation of the Blind/Affiliate: The National
Federation of the Blind.

Mr. Handel wasted no time in replying. His letter dated December 1, 1971, could
serve as a model for insult and condescension. It should be read and re-read
by every self-respecting blind person in the land. Its lesson should be learned
well and never forgotten. It should be remembered whenever and wherever blind
people meet in private homes or in public gatherings, for business or for recreation.

Mr. Handel wrote to Dr. Peppe and Miss Asch as if they had been small children
or mental cripples. He suggested that since the December 7 meeting was to be
a working business session rather than a meeting at which provision could
be made for observers, perhaps Dr. Peppe and Miss Asch might like to meet with
him privately at some mutually convenient time so that they could make comments
and ask questions. He said that he was pleased to know of their interest in
NAC, that he would be glad to add their names to the mailing list. He said
that he would look forward to hearing from them and hoped they would telephone
him at their convenience. Finally, in a P.S., he explained that the annual meeting
of NAC was open to members and invited them to join up.

Lest you think I exaggerate, here is the entire text of Mr. Handel's letter:

Dear Miss Asch and Mr. Peppe:

We are pleased to know of your interest in the work of the National Accreditation
Council and we shall be happy to provide you with information about our current
policies and plans. If you would like to have your names added to the list of
persons who regularly receive our newsletter and other materials, we should
be glad to do so.

Meanwhile, since the meeting to which you refer is a working business session
of our board rather than a session at which provision can be made for observers,
I should like to suggest if you wish to know more about our program that you
meet with me at some other mutually agreeable time.

As you know, our standards are available in Braille and recorded. We welcome
your comments and suggestions on all or any of these standards. By meeting where
a mutual exchange is possible you would be in a position to raise questions
and express your views regarding the matters which, as you indicate, are of
vital concern to blind persons.

Please telephone for an appointment at your convenience. I look forward to
hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,Alexander F. Handel

P. S. The Annual Meeting of NAC is open to its affiliated members. Such affiliation
is available to the National Federation of the Blind and is also open to local
and state organizations of the blind. (See leaflet.)

Dr. Peppe, Miss Asch, and other blind people in New York City then went to
the press. When a reporter called NAC headquarters, Miss Anne New (NAC staff
member) revealed more than she realized. She was quoted in the press as follows: You don't necessarily put a majority of TB patients on the board of a tuberculosis
hospital. We know what the patient wants to be treated as a human being and
not some sort of cripple. We stress this in our standards again and again.

If Miss New does not understand why we as blind people object to her statement
(and she probably doesn't), she makes our point for us. If Mr. Handel does not
understand why we find his letter insulting, condescending, and unresponsive
(and, again, he probably doesn't), then he only underscores what we have been
saying for years. How could anything better illustrate NAC's total isolation
from reality, its complete irrelevance!

It was in this atmosphere and with this background that I went to the Prince
George Hotel in New York City late in the afternoon of December 6, 1971. The
first event was a cocktail party held in Mr. Brandon's suite. I was met at the
door with an air of hostility and resentment.

I think it is pertinent here to call attention once again to the structure
of NAC, as well as to the usual format and tenor of its meetings. The American
Foundation for the Blind and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
are, of course, firmly in control. Officials of both have membership on the
NAC board; and the executive director, Mr. Handel, is a former Foundation employee.
In addition, several other selected agency leaders have membership. To add respectability,
people of prestige from outside of the field of work with the blind have been
placed on the board public officials, business executives, university deans,
labor leaders, etc. These are people of goodwill and integrity, but they are
not knowledgeable concerning the problems of blindness. Obviously they take
their tone and orientation from the American Foundation for the Blind and its
hard core inner circle.

The atmosphere of the NAC board meetings is invariably snobbish and pretentious
almost pathetically so. The civic and business leaders on the board are made
to feel that they have been asked to join an exclusive private club, a body
of national prestige. There is a good deal of socializing and no sense at all
of involvement with the gut issues facing the blind. There is much gracious,
high-toned exchange of compliment and some very businesslike talk about finances.
There is considerable discussion about professionalism and the maintenance
of high standards in work with the blind; but if these people were asked to
sit down for serious conversation with a blind welfare recipient or sheltered
shop employee or college student or secretary or working man or housewife, they
would react with outrage and indignation if they did not die first of shock,
which seems more likely. Here are a group of people who hold themselves out
to the public as the setters of standards and the givers or withholders of accreditation
but who will not deign to mix with or listen to consumers. In fact, as you will
shortly see, they even deny (unbelievable though that is) that the blind are consumers.

Under the circumstances it is not surprising that I was greeted with hostility
and resentment when I entered Mr. Brandon's suite. Very shortly I was engaged
in conversation with Mr. Joseph Jaworski, a lawyer from Houston, Texas. Mr.
Jaworski, whose father is a top official of the American Bar Association, was
recently added to the NAC board. The reason is fairly obvious. He is a person
who evidences no background in or understanding of the problems of blindness
but who seems to have many opinions on the subject. He spoke somewhat as follows:

I have read all of this material about NAC which you sent to the board members,
but tell me: What's the real complaint?

I replied that the real complaint was just what we had said namely, that NAC
had been conceived and structured undemocratically. I told him that since the
primary function of NAC was to make decisions concerning the lives of blind
people, the blind themselves should have a major voice in determining what those
decisions would be and not just individual blind persons, but elected representatives
of constituencies. I told him that the blind representation on NAC was only
tokenism (six out of thirty-four) and that even the tokenism was largely window
dressing since four of the six represented only their agencies or themselves
and, by no stretch of the imagination, constituencies of blind people.

He responded in this manner: There are black people in the city of Houston,
and they do not have a majority or equal representation on the city council.
Yet, the city council governs them and makes decisions about their lives.

Yes, I told him, but the primary purpose of the Houston City Council is not
to make decisions concerning blacks, or even the blacks of Houston. Its primary
purpose is to make decisions about the people of Houston (of whatever color);
and, in the proper democratic tradition, the people of Houston control it
entirely. This is all we are asking of NAC that the people who are primarily
concerned with and affected by its decisions have a major voice in its operation.

Mr. Jaworski did not seem to understand the distinction, nor did two or three
others who were listening in. The rest of the cocktail party passed without
event, as did the dinner which followed.

After dinner the board began its first business session. The question arose
as to what should occur if an agency applied to NAC for accreditation and if
the accreditation should be denied. Should the agency have a right to appeal
to the entire NAC board, or should the decision of the subcommittee called the
Commission on Accreditation be final? I suggested that the NAC board holds itself
out to the public as the accrediting body and, therefore, that it cannot properly
delegate final accrediting authority to a subcommittee.

At this stage Mr. Fred Storey, a sighted theater owner from Atlanta, took the
floor and said: I think we ought to follow the example of other accrediting
bodies in this matter. Since Mr. Jernigan seems to know so much about it, why
doesn't he tell us what other groups do?

I responded that I didn't know what policy other accrediting groups followed.
To which Mr. Storey replied: Then, why don't you be quiet and keep your mouth
shut!

I did not answer in kind but simply told him that as long as I continued to
be a member of the board, I would decide when and on what questions I would
speak. In fairness let it be said here that not all of the board members approved
of Mr. Storey's boorish behavior. Two or three of them came to me privately
afterward and expressed apology and regret. However, not one of them stood up
in the meeting to call him to task or say a single word of protest; and the
Chairman, Mr. Brandon, expressed no disapproval.

After the meeting I went to the front of the room and reminded Mr. Brandon
of his promise of courteous treatment and of how he had received no personal
abuse but only respect at our Houston convention. His tone was one of petulant
fury. He said: Some of the board members feel that you have been abusive to
them. He went on to say: I was never treated so discourteously in my life
as at your Houston convention.

Mr. Brandon, I said, can you really say that the Federation or I personally
did not treat you and Mr. Handel with personal courtesy and respect?

Well, no, he said, but you inflamed the audience with your speech. Besides,
I don't have to listen to you, and I can't control how NAC board members treat
you when they disapprove of your conduct.

At this, I told Mr. Brandon that I now released him from all of his promises
of courtesy and fair treatment and that I would publicize his behavior and that
of the board for all to see, which I am now doing. As I walked back through
the room, I was accosted by Mr. Storey. He was furiously and childishly belligerent. I'm Fred Storey, he said, and I just want to be sure that you know that I'm
the one who told you to shut up.

Look, my friend, I replied.

I'm not your friend,he said. (To which I could only answer: I believe that's
the truth.) He went on: You hide behind words like courtesy and fair play.
Your real purpose is to create dissension and trouble. You have no business
on this board. You are not one of us. This is what he said. I leave it to all
who attended the Houston convention or who care to listen to the recordings
to determine whether we treated the NAC representatives with respect. I also
leave Mr. Storey's loutish behavior to stand as its own commentary, on himself
and on NAC.

The next morning the NAC board assembled as usual, behind closed doors. About
a dozen local blind persons (representing the organized blind of the area) appeared
and sought admission as observers. The request was denied. Apparently fearing
to leave these blind people unwatched, NAC stationed a staff member outside
of the door to remain with them throughout the day. A delegation of four board
members left the meeting to talk with them. It brought back the news that the
group would be content if only two of their number could be admitted as observers,
pledging to cause no disturbance or say a single word.

I offered a motion to admit the observers. Although the discussion that followed
was somewhat characterized by the petty hostility and ill temper of the night
before, the substantive question at issue received attention. Dr. Melvin Glasser,
director of the Social Security Department of the United Auto Workers Union,
said that NAC was only exercising the usual prerogative of any corporation to
hold its board meetings behind closed doors. What about your own organization,
the Federation! he said. Its board meetings are not open. I couldn't come
and attend.

Ah, but you could! I told him. Come on. We would be glad to have you. Our
board meetings are open to all, members and non-members alike.

My motion was defeated with only six yes votes and twenty no votes. It may
be interesting to note that four of the six yes votes were by blind people,
and one of the remaining two was by a black man. In other words two-thirds of
the blind members of the board (even the agency representatives) could not bring
themselves to vote no, and the black representative of the Urban League also
stood to be counted, though he said not a word in defense of the motion and
must, therefore, share in the shame of NAC's sorry behavior. In any case the
blind were excluded, and the NAC staff member stood guard over them throughout
the day. As the NAC minutes admitted, It should be noted that the demonstrators
were peaceful and courteous.

With respect to the matter of closed meetings and secret conduct of affairs,
NAC is almost paranoid in its behavior. As a NAC board member, I had great difficulty
in even getting a list of the names and addresses of the other members. Finally,
under date of May 1, 1971, I received the list; but its form was interesting.
On the top line of the first page (printed in capitals, presumably for emphasis)
was the word confidential. Admittedly one might not be proud to have people
know he was associated with NAC; but why, in the name of all that is reasonable,
should the very names of the NAC board members be kept secret?

Late in the morning I was asked to present the statement which Mr. Brandon
had earlier invited me to give. Federationists are too familiar with my views
to need them repeated here. They were presented in detail at the Houston convention
and in the September, 1971, Braille Monitor.

Company unions serve many purposes. In this connection, the arrangement of
the NAC agenda is interesting. Immediately following my presentation, Judge
Reese Robrahn, president of the American Council of the Blind, delivered a statement.
In general he defended NAC and said that while it had some weaknesses and imperfections,
ACB supports it since ACB is a constructive organization. In an apparent attack
upon the NFB for its criticism of NAC and its criticism of some of the so-called professional literature about blindness issued by the federal government and
the American Foundation for the Blind, Judge Robrahn said: Anyone with normal
intelligence can dissect and distort any standard, sentence or paragraph. This,
however, cannot be considered a validation of the attack on a standard, sentence
or paragraph.

Judge Robrahn, by implication, defended NAC for not denying accreditation
to sheltered shops paying less than the minimum wage to blind workers. Under
the circumstances this is not surprising. It dovetails with the fact, which
the ACB has failed to publicize, that Mr. Durward McDaniel (ACB Washington representative)
now serves as a member of the board of National Industries for the Blind, the
infamous organization that controls merchandise orders from the federal government
to the sheltered shops. Of course, Judge Robrahn also failed to mention the
appearance of Mr. McDaniel in Minnesota last year (with the support of agency
officials) to organize an ACB affiliate when the Federation in that state was
fighting for the rights of collective bargaining for the workers in the sheltered
shop of the Minneapolis Society for the Blind. Many of the blind of the state
felt that the ACB affiliate was being organized as a company union, fostered
by the shop management to divide the workers, break their resistance, and confuse
the public.

In this same vein Mississippi agency officials told Federation organizing
teams early in 1972 that they would not give lists of names of blind persons
to the NFB but that they would give them to the ACB. Later, when the small Mississippi
affiliate of the ACB was established, the reports of pressure for membership
by agency officials were graphic and widespread.

Judge Robrahn attempted to leave the impression that the ACB is large, growing
fast, and about to approach the size of the NFB. The facts, of course, are something
else again. Affiliated organizations on paper are not necessarily organizations
of actuality or substance.

After Judge Robrahn's presentation there was considerable reaction by the members
of the board, particularly to my remarks. Of special interest were the comments
of Dr. Melvin Glasser, the United Auto Workers representative. He said that
NAC was not properly a social action group but a standard-setting body. I tried
to point out to him that NAC could not avoid engaging in social action. By accrediting
and giving its stamp of approval to a sheltered shop which pays fifty cents
or less per hour to blind workers, NAC helps perpetuate the system. If its standards
for determining which shops should be accredited do not take into account the
wages of the workers, then those standards are irrelevant; and they constitute
a form of social action, keeping the blind down and keeping them out.

What an irony that one should have to explain such matters to a representative
of organized labor! Have the unions really become so management-oriented and
so out of touch with ordinary people! Obviously Dr. Glasser did not stand at
the gates of Ford and General Motors in the 1930s and see the hired thugs beat
the workers who tried to organize and improve their condition. Neither did I,
but I sat in the NAC meetings of the l970s and watched the performance of Melvin
Glasser. It is a long way from the factory gates of the thirties to the suave
manner and condescending behavior of Dr. Glasser in New York, but his shame
is none the less for the distance. Those early working men and women who fought
and bled to establish his union, who sometimes risked their very lives for the
concept of minimum wages and the right to organize, must stir in their troubled
graves at the prospect of such behavior by a representative of the UAW.

Dr. Glasser also advanced a novel theory about what a consumer really is. He said that, as with hospitals, so with the blind. Consumers of the services
of hospitals are not just the patients but all of the potential patients therefore, everybody. Thus, the consumers in the field of work with the blind
are not merely those who are now blind but also those who may become blind in
other words, everybody. Therefore, he (Dr. Glasser) is as much a consumer and
has as much right to representation as you or I. Not only would it appear that
the representatives of organized labor support sweatshops and management, but
they've also become sophists it would seem.

I wonder how Dr. Glasser would like a dose of his own sophistry. Let us consider
his union, for instance. Most people in the country are potential workers in
the auto industry. Therefore, they should be eligible for membership in the
UAW. They should be able to vote and hold office. After all, it is not only
the actual workers but the potential workers as well who must be considered.
Even the children will be potential workers someday, and certainly the senior
citizens were potential workers once. So the entire American population has
equal rights in the UAW. False reasoning? You bet!

Next Mr. Robert Goodpasture, former head of National Industries for the Blind,
took the floor. He made a very strongly-worded attack upon me and said that
he would move to censure me if a mechanism were available but that, since it
was not, he would content himself with his statement. He was particularly incensed
that I had made public the vote concerning the link-up between NAC and National
Industries for the Blind. Well he might wish to keep that agreement secret in
view of its disgraceful implications. I told him that I had never pledged to
keep NAC's actions secret and that I had no intention of doing so, now or in
the future. I told him that I felt the blind had a right to know what NAC was
doing and to have a voice in it.

Then, I moved to have his remarks printed verbatim in the NAC minutes. He and
several other board members seemed surprised at this motion and said, What!
Do you want what he said printed!

Yes, I replied. His comments make my point better than anything I could say.
Let them be printed for all to read.

As you will see, the entire text of the NAC minutes is being reproduced in
the Monitor.

Most of the rest of the day was taken up with the usual trivia which characterizes
NAC. It might be worth noting that Mr. Robert Barnett, director of the American
Foundation for the Blind, came back to the meeting after lunch with this comment: The people outside say that one reason they don't like us is because we have
accredited a local New York agency which is anathema to them. Well I guess we'll
just have to change our standards. He said this with a snicker and a smirk
as if to dismiss the demonstrators as kooks and nonentities. He might have done
better to listen to them.

Their feelings of disgust for him and what he stands for were at least as great
as his for them. As one of them later remarked: The blacks may have their Uncle
Toms, but we have our Uncle Bobs. In mid-afternoon I left, feeling that NAC
was a total loss that if anything were to be accomplished, it must be by confrontation, and not in the conference room. We are now left with two questions. What do
we do next, and where do we go from here? It is to these questions that we must
address ourselves.

In the first place Mr. Storey and Mr. Goodpasture are right. I have no business
on the NAC Board. Mr. Storey told me: You are not one of us! No, thank God,
I am not; and I hope I never will be. I do not see how any blind person or any
true friend of the blind can keep his sense of honor and self-respect and serve
on the NAC board. Therefore, I am no longer a member of NAC. I do not ask them
to accept a resignation or to recognize the fact that I have quit. I simply
take this occasion and this means of letting the world know that I am not part
of NAC and that I do not want my name associated with it. We will now see if
they add to their other faults the bad taste and boorish behavior of trying
to expel me after the fact. Let them. We can give their petty action (if they
choose to take it) suitable publicity.

Next we must consider NAC's presumptuous behavior in thinking it can hold closed
meetings. First we tried reason and persuasion. These were spurned. The blind
were not even allowed to have two silent observers in the room. NAC will regret
the day. We will now adopt different tactics. NAC will probably try to conceal
the time and place of future meetings, (just as it writes confidential on
the list of the names of its board members), but we will track them down. Wherever
they go and whenever they meet, we the blind will go to the doors and demand
admission not only the local blind but as many of us as possible from throughout
the country. We will recruit our sighted friends and supporters to swell the
numbers, and we will not take no for an answer. Whatever is required to make
NAC responsive to the needs and problems of the blind, we will do. I have never
participated in a demonstration in my life, but enough is enough. This is the
time to stand and be counted.

We will send material concerning NAC to federal officials and to every member
of the Congress of the United States. Our local and state affiliates and members
must follow up with personal contacts and letters. Further, the blind of each
state must demand that their state and local agencies not seek accreditation
from NAC. If such accreditation is sought, delegations of the blind must call
on the governor and go to the press. If an agency has already achieved accreditation,
we must demand that the accreditation be repudiated. The blind of each locality
must assume responsibility for informing their legislators, governors, public
officials, and news media of the threat which NAC poses. When NAC representatives
are asked to appear on programs, we must protest and demand equal time.

In short, we must treat NAC like the evil which it is. We must make it behave decently or strangle the life out of it. We must reform it or destroy it. We must have at least equal representation on its board and make it truly serve the blind,
or we must kill it. It is that simple. NAC absolutely must not be allowed to take control of the lives of the blind of this
country, regardless of the costs or the consequences. If we permit it, we deserve what we get. If we submit meekly while we still have the power to fight, then we are slaves, and justly so.

But, of course, we will not submit, and we will not fail. The right is on our
side, and the urge to be free sustains us. December 7, 1971, is a day that will
live in infamy, but the stain of that infamy will be cleansed. The shame of
that day will be erased. I ask you to think carefully about what I have said.
Then, if you will, come and join me on the barricades.

By the seventies the gulf between the blindness agencies supporting NAC and
the organized blind themselves led to a breakdown of communication and a systematic
effort by the agency coalition to freeze out blind organizations or their representatives
from NAC meetings. There resulted a series of dramatic confrontations, organized
by the National Federation of the Blind, which soon became a regular annual
event held at the time and place of scheduled NAC conferences. In one year the
landmark year 1973 there were actually two such confrontations with NAC, the
first one in Chicago attended by 300 blind people, and the second in New York
attended by no less than 1,500 blind Americans from all parts of the country.
Each of these massive encounters contained a story replete with drama, inspiration,
and human interest as may be seen from the successive reports on the two events
published in the Braille Monitor. And each of the two NAC confrontations
drew broad public attention symbolized on both occasions by the interview of
National Federation of the Blind President Jernigan on nationwide television,
first in Chicago and then on NBC's Today Show in New York. Following is a
collection of brief first-hand reports by participating Federationists as they
appeared in the Monitor:

INSIDE NAC
by Ralph Sanders

On the Barricades in Chicago: A Preface

I had arrived in Chicago early Tuesday morning to serve, along with John Taylor,
as an official observer during the NAC meetings on June 20-2l. I was also there
to work on the demonstrations by more than three hundred Federationists who
had come, by every means imaginable, from throughout the country to let the
members of NAC's board know just how the blind of this country feel about their
kind of accreditation without representation.

Tuesday was hectic. We were busily preparing for a press conference for Dr. Jernigan for early Wednesday morning. When
the busload of Federationists from California arrived, they all
pitched in. As others arrived, things began to fall into place. Finally, Don Morris and I braved the late afternoon Chicago traffic and
the outrageously expensive cab fares to venture downtown to finish arrangements for the press conference.

When we returned, materials and signs were ready.

The first feeling of great excitement was apparent when those present met in
Don's suite in mid-evening. Following the meeting, a few of us who had not had
time earlier sought dinner. As a foreshadowing of the next two days, this was
hardly finished when we learned that the Iowans, more than seventy strong, had
arrived at the hotel. Again, we met to outline plans.

The next morning, Wednesday, we left a good-sized contingent at the O'Hare
Inn to picket as NAC board members arrived, and the rest of us ventured downtown.

The press conference went very well. With Dr. Kenneth Jernigan speaking on
behalf of the blind of this country, our position was articulately expressed.

By the time those of us who had attended the press conference arrived at Chicago's
Civic Center, picket lines were up on all sides. The public of Chicago heard
and read our message. With little time to spare, we finally boarded buses and
cars and headed for the O'Hare Inn.

When I disappeared to take up my post as an official observer, I was comforted
knowing that some three hundred blind persons manned the barricades in front
of the hotel and in the central courtyard.

The Girl Scouts Do It! Why Not NAC?

With the moral support gained from knowing that the boards of directors of
such groups as the American Red Cross and the Girl Scouts of America hold closed
board meetings, the board of directors of NAC, meeting in Chicago on June 21,
1973, reaffirmed their policy of openness with closed meetings.

McCallister Upshaw, board member from Detroit, moved the resolution. Although,
in the future, any guests attending a board meeting will have to be there on
special invitation from the board of directors, Mr. Upshaw said he didn't feel
that the two observers from the National Federation of the Blind should be asked
to leave. (One has to wonder what position he would have taken if a representative
from Dialogue magazine had not also been in attendance.)

The only dissension against the resolution came from our beloved Uncle Bob, Bob
Barnett, from the AFB. No, he wasn't opposing the idea of closed meetings. He
simply felt the whole discussion was a waste of time and that NAC ought to get
on with the serious items on its agenda.

Based on the quick, unanimous vote in favor of the resolution, one can assume
that all of the board members thought consumer participation a waste of time.

A provision of this resolution would allow any group or person who wishes to
present to the board a matter dealing with NAC to do so. It is important to
note this section of the resolution for it was less than three hours later that
NAC, keeping to its true colors, went against its own resolution.

John Taylor had given Peter Salmon copies of a memo from Dr. Jernigan which
asked for the minutes of the NAC meeting and asked that the organized blind
be permitted two observers at future meetings of the executive committee. John
Taylor requested that Mr. Salmon read the memo and distribute copies, which
we provided, to the members of the board. Mr. Salmon said that he would do this.
Keep in mind that this occurred prior to the adoption of the resolution.

As the NAC meeting was nearing its end, with the members of the board nervously
trying to get out to their planes to be jetted home to their agencies and corporations,
and the memo still not having been announced, John Taylor addressed the chair
to ask that it be done.

Peter Salmon replied, as my notes reflect, that he had discussed the matter
with the NAC executive committee; and that it was felt that it was not an appropriate
time to present the matter. A number of items in Mr. Salmon's message should
raise the blood pressure of the blind of this country: This action contradicted,
if not the letter then at least the professed intent of, the provision of the
resolution adopted earlier by the NAC board allowing presentations to the board.
In addition, there had been no mention of any meeting of the executive committee
(perhaps Mr. Salmon gauged the sense of the executive committee by consulting
with Uncle Bob). Finally, the sequence of events concerning the NFB memo makes
it clear that the resolution barring observers from board meetings only formalized
what has been the NAC policy all along claiming openness while operating in
secrecy.

These actions should provide final proof to any blind person still having
questions about it that NAC intends to continue on its merry way, adopting professional standards and methods of self-evaluation despite what the blind
themselves think. After all, the members of the board of NAC have devoted years
to helping the blind; why shouldn't they know what the blind need?

The annual meeting of NAC took place the previous afternoon, Wednesday, June
20, at Chicago's O'Hare Inn. This was an open membership meeting attended by
representatives of agencies accredited by NAC, agencies seeking accreditation,
NAC sponsors, NAC board members, and most anyone else who happened along.

The most serious business conducted at this session was the election of board
members to fill vacancies created because of deaths or resignations of current
board members and because some board members were rotating off and could not,
for one reason or another, stand for reelection.

Those elected to the board were: Howard Bleakly, formerly of Pennsylvania,
now residing in Illinois, apparently appointed because of personal wealth; William
T. Coppage, head of the Virginia State Agency for the Blind; Dr. John Craner,
professor of educational psychology at Brigham Young University; Floyd Hammond,
co-owner of a lumber company in Phoenix, Arizona, also apparently appointed
because of his wealth; Howard Hanson, director of the South Dakota State Agency
for the Blind; George Henderson, Jr., vice-president of Burlington Industries,
Atlanta, Georgia, again apparently only for his wealth; [?] Morris, member of
the Connecticut State Legislature; Bob Riley, Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas;
and Lou Rives, Jr., of the Federal Department of HEW, Civil Rights Division.

Following election of board members, there was a report regarding the re-evaluation
of agencies which had been accredited by NAC. This discussion led to one regarding
how an agency might determine its effectiveness.

Dan Robinson, the newly elected president of NAC and a CPA with the accounting
firm of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, and Company, offered the thought that this
depended in large measure on the objectives set by the agency. One must assume
that, by Mr. Robinson's standards, if a rehabilitation agency sets as its goal
the placement of job-hungry blind persons in a sheltered workshop, and if after
a year it is determined that all job placements, regardless of skills, have
been made in a workshop, then the agency is highly successful.

At 5:00 p.m. the same day there was a cocktail reception at which John Taylor
and I divided in an attempt to visit personally with as many members of NAC's
board as possible.

I got an opportunity to talk with many of them, including such notables as
Dan Robinson and Morton Pepper. I asked Mr. Robinson to define consumer. He
had barely gotten into some sort of unintelligible definition (it went something
like this: a client is not necessarily a consumer of an agency, nor does a consumer
have to be a client) when he announced that his boss, presumably from Peat,
Marwick, Mitchell, and Company, had arrived, and he danced out of earshot. I
had the distinct pleasure of dining with Fred Storey, a millionaire NAC board
member from Atlanta, Georgia, with whom all Monitor readers should be
familiar for his previous outlandish behavior. True to form, he was just as
insulting as ever toward our President, and toward the integrity of our movement.
Present with us were a number of other board members including Dr. Gerry Scholl,
from the University of Michigan; and George Henderson, a new board member from
Atlanta. There were others there, but memory fails me.

They were generally as discourteous as they thought they could be, which I
assured them was fine. Had I come to Chicago simply to enjoy the company, I
would most certainly have been out on the picket lines and not in the lions'
den. As with Daniel, God was kind to me, and the dinner session ended early.

The meeting of the board of directors of NAC began at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday.
I have already referred to some actions taken by the board. Most of the time
was devoted to nice, friendly remarks from Peter Salmon, Dan Robinson, and others,
complimenting other members of the board who had either assisted in getting
financial gifts from somewhere or who were leaving the board.

I think that there would be general interest in the financial report, however.

It was reported that NAC had started this year with a projected budget of $293,000
but that the budget was now reduced to $278,000 this, it was alleged, because
of sound fiscal management by NAC's staff. It was further reported that by June
21, $102,000 had already been spent. Also, an additional $30,000 would have
to be raised to reach the $278,000 now projected. The contribution by the Department
of HEW has been dropped from $100,000 to $90,000. It was quite obvious from
many comments that NAC anticipates this being the last year that federal support
is offered. Perhaps they anticipated the power of the Federationists marching
outside.

Great attention was given to a donation of approximately $12,000 from a Mrs.
Moses and $100,000 from the Goldman Foundation, or some such group. (John Taylor
and I did not receive printed copies of the materials that everyone else had
before them, so we must rely on our notes.) There was much concern expressed
about future sources of financing.

Keep in mind the amount of money NAC needs to operate, and consider that in
1972 fourteen agencies applied for, and eight received, accreditation. Also,
remember that the agency seeking accreditation bears a great deal of the cost.

It was reported that NAC has now accredited some fifty agencies. If this sounds
impressive, remember that there are more than five hundred agencies in this
country.

Other weighty matters discussed included changing NAC's fiscal year from January
1 through December 31 to July 1 through June 30.

The other interesting action taken by the board was the decision to allow the
executive committee to determine the time and place of the next NAC meeting.

Sitting through the NAC meetings, I kept asking myself just which of the actions
they took did they not want the public to know about? Just what warranted closed,
secret meetings? From what are they cowering? Apparently something must have
gone on in Chicago that John Taylor and I did not attend and which they wish
to keep secret.

They likened themselves unto the Red Cross and the Girl Scouts. It probably
never occurred to them that both these organizations operate entirely on private
funds, seeking no money from Washington, and that neither of these groups takes
actions which determine policies for agencies funded by state and federal tax
dollars. But then, they don't care, I'm convinced, about the public's dollars.
To them it is simply a question of professional standards.

I went to Chicago hoping that reason might prevail; that these distinguished gentlemen might still be able to appreciate the real importance of consumer
participation.

Sitting on the DC-9, winging my way back to Arkansas, homeland of J.M. Woolley
and the new NAC Board member, Lieutenant Governor Bob Riley, I recalled the
events of June 20 and 21 in Chicago. It is not that these people disagree with
us; it is that we speak different languages. Picture Dan Robinson's remark:
the word "consumerism" has become so bastardized as to be meaningless.
They really don't appreciate what most blind Americans face as a part of daily
life. To them a blind American is Peter Salmon, who took occasion to talk about
his chauffeur. No, NAC is not going to have a change of heart and reconsider
consumer participation. Each of them will try to forget that there were several
hundred blind men and women outside, protesting their actions. This they cannot
do, however, for they were too aware of our presence. Little was said to acknowledge
the demonstration at least but you could read in their reactions that they were
afraid: afraid that things wouldn't be as they had been in the days when the
sheltered workshop was considered kind and the agencies' services weren't questioned.
A number of them, I am certain, were questioning their participation in NAC.
They will do a great deal of thinking in the weeks to come. One should not be
too surprised to see a number of resignations in coming months.

It is interesting to note that at least one NAC board member, Bob Buckley,
from Iowa, resigned prior to the board meeting. What is particularly enlightening
is the fact that neither his name nor his resignation were mentioned during
any of the meetings to which John Taylor and I were invited. They are scared:
scared of what can happen when a board member copes with personal integrity,
and scared to acknowledge resignations. The question we must answer is how scared
they will become. The answer lies in our hands.

Following the end of the board meeting, John Taylor and I found our friends
in force in the central courtyard, where a dialogue was underway between Don
Morris, our ever present and always energetic chairman, and Bob Barnett, Uncle
Bob. But all we got was more evidence that we apparently speak different languages
we English and they NAC-anese. Barnett was finally saved from his embarrassment
when two of his friends dragged him from our midst. It seems that Mr. Barnett
was about to miss his lunch. Oh well! It was extremely reassuring to sit in
the meetings knowing that hundreds of blind friends were outside, braving the
sun and fatigue to express the feelings of tens of thousands of blind people
from throughout the country, loudly, but peacefully. Our honor, in contrast
to NAC's deception, must stand as a symbol: something for all of us to follow
in the coming months as we pursue the reformation or disappearance of NAC. Let
history record just who it was that failed to meet the issues. NAC, the dirt
is on your hands, not on the hands of the Red Cross, the Girl Scouts, or the
blind of this country.

OUR CAUSE GOES MARCHING ON: OUTSIDE NAC

by Don Brown

Glory, glory, Federation; NAC needs some alteration. Start with representation; Our cause goes marching on.

This song, spontaneously created and sung on the Chicago picket lines, captures
the spirit and mood of the three hundred Federationists who came from all over
this nation to demonstrate their concern and protest their grievances to the
National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped.
Despite NAC's efforts to keep the time and location of their summer board meeting
a secret from the National Federation of the Blind until the last moment; and
despite NAC's choice of the O'Hare Inn for their meeting place, a hotel hidden
away from the mainstream of Chicago's activity in the airport complex; and despite
the choice of the meeting time, June 20th and 21st, in the middle of a work
week, the National Federation of the Blind demonstrations against NAC can only
be judged an overwhelming success.

I arrived in Chicago in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday, June 19th,
the day before the first NAC meeting, and found a large group of Federationists
from several states already busily at work putting together picket signs in
the National Federation of the Blind demonstration headquarters located in the
O'Hare Inn. The work went cheerfully and quickly, perhaps because we are becoming
more proficient in sign assembly with each passing NAC demonstration. The first
briefing session took place at nine o'clock that evening. Don Morris urged a
standing-room-only crowd that flowed into and down the hall to keep their cool
during the demonstrations and to be on our guard against whatever NAC might
throw at us. Don pointed out that, based on previous experience, we could expect
almost anything from NAC, and he pointed out that we had to maintain restraint
at all times.

The next morning, Wednesday, June 20th, Federationists clambered aboard two
Greyhound buses; and, leaving a large delegation of demonstrators behind to
man picket lines at the front of the hotel, we headed for the downtown Chicago
Civic Center. We were greeted there by a large delegation of Illinois Federationists
swelling our ranks to well over one hundred enthusiastic demonstrators. We stationed
ourselves on the four corners of the block, at the doorways to the Civic Center,
with the remainder of us circling the block. All of us carried signs and handed
out thousands of handbills to the public. Deep concern and indignation were
often expressed by those Chicagoans we had the opportunity to reach that morning.
Later that morning President Jernigan arrived from a successful press conference
and joined us at the barricades. Carrying a picket sign, President Jernigan
marched around the block. The number and enthusiasm of the Federationists at
the Civic Center that morning can be measured by the number of Federationists
who attempted to give President Jernigan and each other handbills. President
Jernigan spoke to an interested public by microphone from a platform, eloquently
expressing our cause and what they, as concerned citizens, could do to help
create an atmosphere in which NAC would be responsive to the needs of the blind.

At noon we boarded the Greyhound buses for the bumper-to-bumper trip back to
the O'Hare Inn. Three picket lines were maintained throughout the afternoon
and evening of June 20 and the morning of June 21. Two picket lines were at
the front of the hotel, one on either side of the hotel's front entrance, while
a third group maintained a vigil around the hotel swimming pool. The NAC board
meeting room was adjacent to this courtyard area. We walked for hours, singing
songs, chanting slogans, and talking to hotel guests.

The Chicago press was on the scene throughout Wednesday afternoon. Newspaper
reporters talked to Federationists from all over the country while newspaper
photographers captured on film the number of demonstrators for their reading
public. Television cameras and microphones were in view that afternoon recording
the action and enthusiasm of the festive but disciplined singing and chanting
marchers.

The picket lines were disbanded at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday evening, and we returned
to the National Federation of the Blind demonstration headquarters for a briefing
session at which Don Morris commended the gathered Federationists for their
enthusiasm, hard work, and self-discipline.

The next morning at 8:00 a.m., a Greyhound bus carried a group to the airport
terminal where they carried signs and gave handbills to the passing public.
Thursday morning the press evidenced their interest by their presence, many
staying on the scene longer than some of the NAC board members themselves. The
bulk of the Federationists were on the three hotel picket lines by 8:00 a.m.
Thursday morning. By midmorning the bus had returned from the airport complex
and the largest group of Federation demonstrators of the two day meeting began
a vigil for the emergence of the NAC board members from their meeting. We all
gathered in the inner courtyard adjacent to the NAC board meeting room and softly
sang and chanted songs, quietly standing and holding our signs. The NAC board
meeting dispersed at 12:30 and the successful National Federation of the Blind
demonstration ended at 1:00 p.m. We returned to the National Federation of the
Blind demonstration headquarters where we were briefed on the closed NAC board
meeting by our two observers.

By any measure, the demonstration was a success. One is moved by the dedication
of Federationists who traveled thousands of miles at tremendous personal expense
and inconvenience, either individually or in groups, as the National Federation
of the Blind of California and the National Federation of the Blind of Iowa
did by chartered bus. The solidarity of the group, its self-discipline and enthusiasm
were an impressive testimony to those who participated. The impact that we had
on Chicago can be measured by the extensive and favorable press coverage that
we were given by the local news media. The impact that we had on NAC can be
measured by the open hostility that we encountered in many NAC board and staff
members. This hostility is witness to our effectiveness for it accurately reflects
the feeling of many NACsters that their position of credibility in the eyes
of Congress, the blind, and the public has been shaken, and that they are on
the run, and that they know that the National Federation of the Blind will continue
to track NAC.

REFLECTIONS OF A RANK-AND-FILE PICKETER

by Nancy Smalley

Where does a "Freedom Bus" go? What is a "NACster"? On
June 17, 1973, thirty-one California Federationists boarded their bus and left
for Chicago. This "Freedom Bus" was chartered by the National Federation
of the Blind of California and was financed largely through donations from California's
fifty local affiliates. The enthusiastic travelers paid for the rest of the
trip out of their own pockets.

The destination of this bus was Chicago's O'Hare Inn, or NAC-land. NAC, the
National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped,
was holding its semiannual conference, and Federationists from all over the
nation wanted to be present to voice their disapproval of NAC's acts. Giving
NAC accreditation to sheltered workshops which pay far below minimum wage standards,
for example, is not met with a great deal of acceptance by most blind people.
The organized blind have no voice in this so-called accreditation although they
are most assuredly affected by it. However, once an agency receives this accreditation
it is eligible for federal funds from the Department of HEW. Approximately $600,000
of taxpayers' money has been used to date. Blind people feel that if they, the
consumers of the services of these agencies, can voice no opinions regarding
these services, then federal funds should not be used for such a program. Thus,
hundreds of Federationists felt compelled to personally protest the activities
of NAC. The California "Freedom Bus," with its load of weary travelers,
pulled into Chicago Tuesday morning, June 19. But these Californians had come
to work; and, after a shower, a change of clothes, and a bite to eat, they were
busy at work assembling picket signs in the headquarters suite. Phones were
capably handled by Judy Boyle [who is multi-handicapped] during most of the
Chicago stay. The picket sign assembly line went on into the evening, but finally
the last one was completed and stored for easy availability. That night a briefing
session was held relating to events for the following day. Californians greeted
and mingled with Federationists from other states. Don Brown and Arthur Eick
had flown in and joined the group. Mr. Eick, in his eighties, proved there was
no generation gap in this high-spirited group which was composed of college
students and right on up the ladder of accumulating years.

Wednesday morning found our group back on the "Freedom Bus," but
this time only to take the short trip into Chicago's Civic Center Plaza. Hundreds
of Federationists carried picket signs and passed out handbills all morning
at the Plaza. To further interest and educate the public, Dr. Jernigan and other
blind leaders used the Plaza's public-address system to explain our cause. Around
noon, picketers, picket signs, and handbills were back on the bus heading toward NAC-land where
"NACsters" had gathered.

Bob Acosta, ably assisted by Don Brown, was our committee member from California
to help coordinate the demonstration. Organized picketing continued throughout
Wednesday afternoon and on into late evening while the NAC banquet was in progress.
This degree of organization could not have been accomplished without a great
deal of hard work on the part of many people. Don Morris, of Iowa, and Ralph
Sanders, of Arkansas, were on top of the situation at all times. Dr. Jernigan
himself was seen with a picket sign in his hand. Bob received complete cooperation
from the Californians, and Bob's own voice could often be heard leading our
people in thechant, NAC, No! Blind Rights, Yes!

While a majority of people were at the Plaza Wednesday morning, a group remained
to cover the O'Hare Inn. This group was most ably organized and overseen by
Kathy Northridge and Mary Catalano.

When Thursday morning rolled around the rather tired picketers were back in
line, picket signs and handbills in hand, but still enthusiastically singing
and chanting. By now most of our people had sunburned faces and blistered feet.
Marching on a picket line is no easy task. Braving the elements such as the
sun and wind takes a lot of strong will and fortitude.

Federationists were on hand until the final NAC meeting adjourned. But NAC
would not talk to us, with the exception of Mr. Talbert, who met briefly with
the Californians. John Taylor was not allowed to give his short statement. John
and Ralph Sanders surely attended those meetings as silent observers. Bob Barnett,
from the American Foundation for the Blind, talked briefly with some of us as
he left the meeting but refused to see the seriousness of the matter. Were all
our efforts going down the drain? Was NAC completely unfazed by our presence?
I think not. They were, indeed, aware of our presence; and they must have realized
we are not about to give up the fight. The National Federation of the Blind
is going to pursue this matter to the finish.

Thursday afternoon, June 21, the Californians once again boarded their Freedom
Bus and braced themselves for the long trip back to Los Angeles. Would there
be a letdown on the return trip after all the events of the past week? No indeed;
there was not. This hearty crew had just begun to fight. Earl Carlson was a
mass of bandaids covering the blisters on his feet that he received while acting
as messenger throughout the large complex of the O'Hare Inn. Ed Crespin was
another who covered the area, assisting people and substituting for picketers
needing a break.

A feeling of happiness, success, and togetherness existed throughout the group.
Repeated choruses of Glory, Glory, Federation could be heard sporadically
during the trip. Although the trip was long and tiring, it was relieved with
jokes and stories, courtesy of Al Gil and others, singing, and a general good
time until the final stop where we parted company.

NAC: CONFRONTATION IN NEW YORK

The Federation's most historic event, aside from its founding, occurred most
appropriately on Dr. tenBroek's birthday, Friday, July 6. At about mid-morning
a foundation-shaking (American Foundation for the Blind-shaking) rollcall took
place. As the President of the National Federation of the Blind called the names
of the states, the delegates arose and made their way to their appointed places,
secured state standards and picket signs, and marched the half mile, two-by-two,
and four-by-four, on the sidewalks of New York with dignity, pride, and great
decorum, to fill busy Madison Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets, curb to
curb, chanting: Fifty thousand blind people/Can't be wrong, and We can speak/For ourselves. There, before the building which houses NAC, the President of the
National Federation of the Blind presided over the hanging of NAC in effigy
and its burial in a huge wooden coffin (which had been carried in the line of
march by some of the Federation's finest and heaviest) with such pomp and circumstance
as the occasion deserved. President Jernigan addressed the crowd and delivered
the following eulogy:

Eulogy for NAC

They came, they said, to help the blind the poor, unfortunate blind. They
came, they said, to help the agencies the many agencies who help the blind.
They came, they said, to establish standards to improve the services provided
to the blind the poor, unfortunate blind.

Instead, they came and they hurt the blind. They came, and they gave sanction
to agencies which provide sub-standard services to the blind. They came, but
they came with repression, with bad faith, and with attempts at political control
of the blind.

In the beginning there was the American Foundation for the Blind. And the American
Foundation begat COMSTAC. And COMSTAC begat NAC. They came from the welfare
establishment, and they came from the dens of political power. They came, and
they gave us NAC NAC, which was conceived in sin and born of corruption.

And when we, the blind, saw this NAC and learned of its ways, we came saying, NAC is not competent to speak for us at best, it can speak with us.

But they would not listen. NAC would not listen. The American Foundation for the Blind would not listen. When we said, Let us take part, they closed their doors. When we said, Let us speak for ourselves, they closed their ears.

Finally we came marching marching to take part, marching to be heard, marching
to be free, marching to be treated like human beings. And when we came marching,
they closed their eyes. They locked us out, and they turned us out, but we are
here today because they cannot turn us off. We have tried every channel of communication
to bring about reform of NAC. It is not that NAC cannot hear us: They don't
want to hear us.

But they will hear us. They will know we are here today in the largest gathering
of blind people ever assembled in the history of the world. And whenever and
wherever NAC meets again, we will be there.

NAC is not alone in the harm it has done to the blind, for some of the blame
must be shared by officials of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
who have given NAC over $600,000 of the taxpayers' money.

We have come too far to forget the American Foundation for the Blind and its
role in creating NAC. We have come too far to forget the role of Peat, Marwick,
Mitchell, and Company and other wealthy corporations in supporting NAC. We have
come too far to forget, for the hurt to blind people has been great.

We have come today to confront NAC. We have come to confront its secrecy and
its refusal to talk with us. We have come seeking redress of our grievances
and the righting of our wrongs. If NAC will not listen to us, then the Congress
will listen; and the public will listen. Our cause is just.

We have come to assert our independence. Hear us, NAC. Hear us clearly. We
shall determine our own destinies and be free from you and all that you represent.
We have come here to put NAC aside. We have come to put away that which has
hurt us and replace it with our own freedom.

The communications media were there in force and in all their forms. The ubiquitous
Miss New, NAC's all-around coverup girl, came as usual to dissuade the press,
radio, and TV people from listening to us with her familiar phrase but it is all a misunderstanding on the part of the blind, of course. It would seem that
the blind don't appreciate NAC's efforts to run their lives for them. There
were many on-the-spot interviews with President Jernigan and other Federationists.

The ceremonies over, most of the marchers returned to the convention. However,
several hundred boarded waiting buses for the ride uptown to the headquarters
offices of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, and Company. The huge building on Park Avenue
is set well back from the street. It was noon hour, the weather was pleasant,
and many people were out on the building's large plaza.

It was obvious that our group was expected. The first Federationists off the
bus were greeted by a well-groomed young man who asked seemingly innocent questions
spurred by curiosity as he walked the picket line with the marchers. Groups
of men in twos or threes approached others with questions about the reason for
the picketing, who the marchers were, whom they represented, what the Federation
had against NAC, what had Dan Robinson done, and such like. All were answered,
politely and in full.

While the pickets marched and chanted in front of the building, a delegation
of Federationists, led by Don Morris of Iowa and Ralph Sanders of Arkansas,
went up to the offices of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, and Company to see Mr. Robinson.
Needless to say, they were not received by NAC's new president, and his emissary
was anything but polite; in fact, he was rude and threatening. But whether there
was direct communication or not, NAC got the message.

This great effort to carry our case to NAC and the public would not have been
possible without the complete cooperation of New York's public officials and
especially its fine police force. The convention expressed its feelings by unanimously
adopting the following Resolution:

Resolution 73-15

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind conducted the largest demonstration
of blind people in the history of the world to protest against the harmful actions
of the National Accreditation Council; and

WHEREAS, this protest demonstration involved the movement of upwards of two
thousand demonstrators across midtown Manhattan with attendant disruption of
traffic; and

WHEREAS, the complete assistance of the New York City Police Department was
rendered with utmost courtesy, efficiency, and friendliness: Now therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled
this 6th day of July, 1973, in the City of New York, that this organization
instruct its President to convey our heartfelt gratitude and deep appreciation
for the invaluable services rendered by the Police Department of the City of
New York; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a special message of thanks be given to Captain
Wiener of the New York Police Department who showed more devotion and understanding
in two hours than NAC has shown during its entire existence; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be delivered to the Honorable
John V. Lindsay, Mayor of the City of New York.

WE DID NOT GIVE UP AND GO HOME

by Shirley Lebowitz

The first time I ever carried a picket sign was in December, 1972, when the
NAC board of directors held a meeting at the Prince George Hotel in New York
City. I joined a small but determined group of Federationists to demonstrate
for meaningful consumer representation on the policy-making board of NAC. In
spite of the cold, strong, winter winds, we did not put down our picket signs,
give up and go home. We spoke then, but NAC did not listen.

Six-and-a-half months later we organized another demonstration. This time there
was a longer line of marchers at the O'Hare Inn in Des Plaines, Illinois, and
in spite of the blazing hot summer sun, we did not put down our picket signs,
give up, and go home. Because of the lack of pedestrian traffic at the O'Hare
Inn, we could not speak to the man on the street but we came to be heard by
NAC, and they did hear us, but once again, they did not listen.

Two weeks later on July 6, 1973, an army of Federationists from every state
affiliate joined us as we moved the barricades to the doorstep of the NAC offices
at 79 Madison Avenue, New York. Once again, we were seen and heard, and, just
as before, NAC did not listen. When will they ever learn?

During the seventies, and beyond, the organized blind kept up a drumbeat of
activity marches; confrontations; TV, radio, and press interviews; Monitor articles; and more protesting the policies and practices of NAC and its companion
agencies. The persistent campaign was not long in bearing fruit; by the end
of the decade NAC had not only lost credibility within the blindness system,
it had lost the government funding (provided by Health, Education, and Welfare)
and also had lost increasing numbers of agencies no longer interested in its
accreditation. Gradually but steadily NAC saw its vaunted power reduced and
its authority and reputation put in question. Although it struggled on into
the eighties, clinging to its remnant of clients and cursing the name of the
organized blind, NAC ceased to be a major impediment in the path of the movement
and became instead a minor nuisance.

Among the instrumental factors in the decline of NAC was an authoritative critical
analysis of the agency in the form of An Open Letter to Directors of Agencies Serving the Blind Concerning N.A.C. and its Accrediting Practices which was
published in the Braille Monitor in 1978 (August-September issue). This
comprehensive report, written in scholarly language and painstakingly documented,
reviewed the history of NAC with reference particularly to certain key cases
which had gained public notoriety during the decade of the seventies (those
of NAC-supported sheltered shops in Cleveland and Minneapolis, plus a state
agency in Florida). The full text of the Monitor report follows:

AN OPEN LETTER TO DIRECTORS OF AGENCIES SERVING THE BLIND CONCERNING N. A. C. AND ITS ACCREDITATION PRACTICES

The purpose of this letter is to provide information about the National Accreditation
Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) information
we hope will cause you to consider seriously whether NAC accreditation is the
way to achieve or maintain high standards of service within your agency. The
information is presented to you by the National Federation of the Blind, the
nation's largest consumer organization of the blind, themselves. Because the
Federation has been the collective voice of the blind for nearly 40 years, and
because in that time we have been associated with most of the advances in programs
and civil rights for the blind, we feel that we can speak about quality services with
some weight. Yet because we have been at odds with the National Accreditation
Council for more than ten years, and because our efforts to reform NAC have
led NAC's officers to characterize the Federation, among other things, as the negative forces of misguided, counterproductive elements, some agency directors
have come to regard the National Federation of the Blind as just one side in
a political struggle.

Recognizing that this intense controversy has tended to call into question
the objectivity of both NAC and the National Federation of the Blind, this letter
will rely as little as possible on judgments. It will concentrate on evidence
from sources outside of the Federation from court judgments, from federal investigations,
and from people in the field unconnected with the National Federation of the
Blind or NAC. This sort of evidence has been piling up for a number of years.
We believe there is no longer a question about the worth and purpose of NAC
accreditation.

It will be necessary to provide a context for the information we wish to present;
and it will be necessary to make a number of judgments in order to do so. These
judgments particularly those relating to events and trends now some ten or more
years in the past could be supported as amply as more recent events. We shall
not do so, since one of our purposes here is to state the case briefly. The
past, except as a general background, is unnecessary to prove our case. Discount
our judgments if you wish to; the events of the last few years speak clearly,
and they are verified by evidence that cannot be discounted.

Background

It is generally accepted that the last fifty years have seen a revolution in
attitudes toward the blind. Before that stretching back through history there
was an unquestioned belief that the blind are helpless, suited only for custody
in special institutions or, at best, for work in a few handcraft trades (such
as chair caning and broom making) or the simple, repetitive tasks performed
in the traditional sheltered workshop.

This view of blindness now is recognized by most people as limiting and obsolete.
With the development of alternative techniques to overcome a lack of sight,
the blind have emerged from their age-old isolation and joined the mainstream
of society. The trend toward emphasizing ability rather than disability took
some getting used to, but gradually most of those in the field of work with
the blind embraced it. Certainly the blind welcomed a philosophy that freed
them from their rocking chairs and asylums.

But as happens when any major change in attitudes occurs, there was opposition
to the new philosophy of blindness. This was a remarkable thing: Why should
those who had devoted their lives to helping the blind resent the progress of
the blind toward independence and full participation? The answer is a very common
and human one. Some professionals were unable to see beyond their financial
and psychological investment in the status quo.

Within the last five years, a questionnaire was distributed to the administrators
of sheltered workshops in the country. Near the end appeared the question: Do you find that your blind clients are less grateful today for what you are
doing for them than they were ten years ago? This is the psychological investment
in a nutshell. A few decades ago, an agency director put it a different way
when he said: To dance and sing, to play and act, to swim, bowl and rollerskate,
to work creatively in clay, wood, aluminum or tin, to make dresses, to join
in group readings or discussions, to have group entertainments and parties,
to engage in many other activities of one's own choosing this is to fill the
life of anyone with the things that make life worth living.

In answer to this, Jacobus tenBroek, founder of the National Federation of
the Blind, replied: Are these the vital channels of self-expression for you?
Are these the indispensable ingredients that make life worth living? Or are
these only the minor and peripheral touches that lend variety to a life well-filled
with more substantial things such as a job, a home, and the rights and responsibilities
of citizenship?

Some professionals understandably felt that the blind were biting the hand
that had fed them for centuries. The blind didn't see it this way; they felt
that an establishment had grown up that fed on their dependency, that depended
on their dependency.

The financial investment of some professionals in the old attitudes is even
easier to understand. Work with the blind has long been a place for wealthy
philanthropists to direct their contributions and their friends and cousins.
Salaries for blindness professionals are high, the emotional rewards are great,
the public acclaim for those who enter the field gratifying.

A typical case is the traditional lighthouse or sheltered workshop. Blind workers
even today may be paid as little as 25 percent of the minimum wage. Shop managers,
on the other hand, are usually paid generous salaries and work with excellent
security and in comfortable conditions. Often a good deal of social recognition
goes along as an added benefit (if only in the social mixing with the wealthy
who support the lighthouses). But when the blind begin to discuss extending
minimum wage laws to the shops, or talk about unions, or demand places on the
shop board of directors, it is seen by management (and rightly so) as a threat
to their traditional perquisites.

This fear of change and resistance to new attitudes was widespread in the 1940s,
at the time of the founding of the National Federation of the Blind. But it
has largely died away as professionals saw the stunning results of the new ideas.
As the blind gained access to education, to the common callings and professions,
it became obvious that work with the blind could be a much more positive and
truly rewarding endeavor than it had been in the old days of custodialism.

To some, though, this whole trend was a pill so bitter that it could not be
swallowed. The agency with the greatest investment both financially and psychologically
in the old system was the venerable American Foundation for the Blind (AFB),
a New York agency that came close to dominating the field in the early part
of this century and which had amassed vast financial resources as a result of
its pre-eminence. It was involved in some of the early advances in technology
for the blind; it virtually owned Helen Keller (it has used her name to raise
millions and millions of dollars); in Congress and literally around the world,
the AFB was regarded as the ultimate authority on blindness.

As the Federation grew (concurrent with the change in public attitudes toward
the handicapped), the American Foundation's domination of the field declined.
But unlike most of the other traditional agencies, the Foundation was unwilling
to adapt itself to the new situation. It resisted the notion that blind people
could speak for themselves; indeed, it labeled their insistence on doing so
a form of neurosis growing out of their blindness. Gradually, professionals
and agencies in the field who, for whatever reason, found the new independence
of the blind inconvenient looked to the Foundation for support. The American
Foundation for the Blind became a bastion of the old style custodialism.

The Origins of NAC

This division in the field and the Foundation's waning prestige led to the
establishment of the National Accreditation Council.

In the early 1960s, the AFB announced the formation of a Commission on Standards
and Accreditation for Services for the Blind (COMSTAC). Later this became the
National Accreditation Council. The ostensible reason for COMSTAC and NAC was
laudable enough. As expressed in 1976 by Louis Rives, Jr., NAC's current president,
this was as follows:

The standards and accreditation system of which NAC is the voice came from
within the field from the experience of blind people, from government and other
suppliers of services to blind people, and from the public which supports agencies
and schools for the blind. All agreed there should be some objective way to
determine whether an agency or school is doing a good job. In 1967 they joined
in creating NAC to provide this objective determination through a voluntary
system of accreditation.

The broad consensus Mr. Rives refers to is a public relations fantasy. The
American Foundation for the Blind believed it already represented such a consensus;
NAC was an attempt to impose the AFB's views on the rest of the field.

There were no open forums to develop standards. Meetings were held that were
advertised as having this purpose; but those who attended were handed standards
that had been formulated beforehand. Criticisms of this procedure and the standards
themselves were ignored. Indeed, those who were thought to be hostile to the
AFB were turned away at the door. (In 1973 the National Federation of the Blind
prepared three publications documenting the early history of NAC. These are
available to anyone who wishes to explore the matter further.)

The origins of NAC, the make-up of its board of directors, and the trading
of staff between NAC and the AFB make NAC's claim to represent an objective
consensus untenable. Even without all this, NAC's financial history removes
all doubt in the matter. In 1968, according to NAC documents, $70,000 out of
a projected budget of $154,034 was to come from the AFB; most of the rest came
from a $75,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
In succeeding years, particularly after HEW cut off its funding, the AFB increased
its contributions to make up for other losses of income. In fiscal 1977 (according
to the NAC Annual Report), out of a total income of $301,962, the AFB provided
$188,000.

Nor has the Foundation's support been limited to directgrants. When a small
band of National Federation of the Blind members broke away in the early 1960s
to form the American Council of the Blind (ACB), the Foundation courted the
group, spurring it to attack anyone who questioned the value of NAC accreditation.
More recently the Foundation began making direct grants to the ACB. Immediately
after these grants began, the ACB's magazine, the Braille Forum, began
printing NAC-originated attacks on the National Federation of the Blind. ACB
staff members have been put on the boards of NAC and the Foundation.

During the early years of NAC, despite Mr. Rives's statement about voluntary accreditation, the blind witnessed a variety of attempts by the AFB to pass
legislation or guidelines at both the state and federal level to condition government
funding on NAC accreditation.

Concerning the NAC standards themselves, at first all that could be said was
that they placed an overwhelming emphasis on ensuring that agency staff would
enjoy job security and their traditional privileges. The standards were also
concerned with the details of the agency's bureaucratic structure. The agency's
effect on its blind clients on whether they were being prepared for independent
participation in society was a secondary, and apparently irrelevant, consideration.

Irrelevant as the NAC standards were to the real concerns of blind people,
it soon became clear that they were irrelevant for another reason. It became
clear that NAC accreditation did not depend on an agency's adhering to the standards.
Our reasons for concluding this are discussed later; but there is no reason
to doubt that it is so: NAC officials concede the point.

At the NAC annual meeting held in November, 1977, in Phoenix, an observer asked
about the discrepancy between the practices of accredited agencies and the language
of the standards. Wesley Sprague, chairman of NAC's Commission on Standards,
replied that every agency has when they're reaccredited or accredited has to
abide by the standards of the various sections as pertain to them. But then
Richard Bleecker, NAC's executive director, interrupted to explain:

Excuse me, as I may add a postscript to the answer. I want to be complete in
responding to Mr. Parker. And I would love nothing more than to concede the
correctness. However, I must point out that not every accredited agency is able
to meet every standard. And meeting every standard is not a precondition to
accreditation. In fact, no accredited agency as yet meets every standard. Accreditation
and standards are a direction, and it's a process of improvement. To be accredited,
the agency must either meet the standards or have an awareness and commitment
to attempt to meet them.

To which we would simply add that if the precondition to accreditation is only a commitment to attempt to meet the standards, accreditation becomes
meaningless.

The Decline of NAC

What must an agency do, then, to gain NAC accreditation? It must give public
support to the American Foundation for the Blind and NAC, or some of the agency's
directors must also be members of the AFB or NAC boards. To understand why NAC
would adopt such a practice (and we believe the fact that it has will not be
in question by the end of this letter), we must look at the setbacks NAC has
received in the last few years.

At first NAC accomplished a respectable number of accreditations each year.
In 1970 (the year NAC had its highest net gain), 16 agencies were added to its
list. At that time NAC had high hopes of continuing this rate of growth. According
to a 1974 report on NAC by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO): During
the SRS team visit in March, 1973, NAC told the team its fiscal year 1978 projected
budget was $379,000 and an estimated total of 200 or about 50% of the approximately
400 organizations serving the blind and visually handicapped would by then be
accredited.

Yet even when this statement was made, professional and agency support for
NAC was dropping away. In fiscal 1975 the net gain was four agencies; in fiscal
1976 it was five; and in fiscal 1977 it was only three. Thus by the end of 1977,
instead of nearing its projection of 200, NAC had only 67 accredited agencies.
(We use the term net gains because during this period several agencies made
the decision not to renew their accreditation when it expired.)

Another setback occurred in 1973 when an ad hoc committee of the American Library
Association's Round Table on Library Services to the Blind stated: It is the consensus of the committee members that the NAC standards as they pertain to
library service for the blind are no longer relevant. Following this, NAC withdrew
its library standards and no longer accredits libraries.

A major setback was the loss of HEW funding, which in the early 1970s accounted
for roughly half of NAC's budget. The GAO report discusses the termination of
the grant that provided this funding: The Director, Division of Project Grants
Administration, SRS, told us that the NAC grant was recommended for phase-out
in 1975 by the Division of Project Grants Administration because of:

- NAC's poor performance record;

- Low acceptance of NAC accreditation by blind agencies.

- A low cost-benefit ratio.*

(*This GAO report, made in response to a request from Congressman John Brademas
and published in September 1974, has been talked about widely by NAC and represented
as clearing NAC of all the criticisms brought against it. As will be clear from
the few portions already quoted, the report simply recounts what GAO investigators
were told by the people they talked to. The GAO found no financial malfeasance which is all that an accounting office can determine but then no financial
wrongdoing had been alleged. The problems with NAC have nothing to do with accounting.)

Two other occurrences from this period (1973-1975) are also represented by
NAC officials as absolving it from criticism. One is an HEW study done in 1973,
the other is a statement inserted in the Congressional Record by Congressman
Brademas. The HEW study was made by a panel heavily weighted toward NAC. One
of the panel members was Louis Rives (now president of NAC and even then a strong
partisan of the agency). Another member was Arthur Korn, who had been involved
in the organization of COMSTAC, NAC's predecessor.

The circumstances surrounding the Brademas statement speak to NAC's credibility.
Speaking in July, 1975, NAC executive director Richard Bleecker said: You may
remember Congressman Brademas as the one who called on the U.S. General Accounting
Office, the official investigative arm of the Congress, to make a thorough study
of these charges and accusations [against NAC], a study which, as you know,
did not sustain them. Since then, Mr. Brademas has been looking with great care
at this whole thing to see what the fuss is all about. And, I am pleased to
report, he has recently inserted a statement in the "Congressional Record" that uncompromisingly recognizes NAC as a responsible and effective standards-setting,
accrediting body.

However, when the Federation contacted Mr. Brademas's office, we learned that
the statement in question had been prepared by NAC and that Mr. Brademas inserted
it in the Record as a courtesy gesture. As Mr. Brademas himself later wrote: I am troubled to learn that my insertion of a report of NAC's programs has been
construed as singling out for recognition of NAC's accreditation process. Rather,
I intended my statement and the report of NAC's work to be included in the Congressional Record as information for those interested in standards for agencies
that serve visually handicapped people.

Finally, NAC relies heavily on the fact that the U.S. Office of Education
has NAC on a list of Nationally Recognized Accrediting Agencies and Associations, a list which includes accrediting bodies for everything from embalming to landscaping.
Yet in the summer of 1976, when NAC applied for a grant from the Bureau of Education
for the Handicapped the section of the Office of Education with expertise in
blindness the proposal was rejected. All of these instances show what is generally
recognized in any event that approval or disapproval by the government is a
political process and that most government reports have in them something for
everyone.

NAC-Accredited Agencies

We now turn to an examination of a few of the agencies determined by NAC to
be providing quality services to the blind. Our general thesis is that the test
of an accrediting system is not its public statements but the programs it approves.
In choosing examples we have focused on agencies whose problems go beyond differences
of philosophy.

In 1972, the blind of Florida received services from the NAC-accredited Bureau
of Blind Services (this has now been reorganized into the Office of Services
for the Blind). It was the state licensing agency for the federal Randolph-Sheppard
program (under which blind persons have a priority to operate vending facilities
on federal property). As the state licensing agency, the Bureau had responsibility
for managing the support services for the vending facilities, a number of which
were located at Cape Canaveral.

A state licensing agency may take (or set aside) a portion of vendors' earnings
for certain purposes that are narrowly defined in federal law. These include
(1) maintenance and replacement of equipment; (2) purchase of new equipment;
(3) management services (in other words, the payment of the salaries of stand
supervisors); and (4) assuring a fair minimum return to other operators. The
law makes it clear there may be no exceptions to these categories, and it says
that the set-aside must be reasonable. In Florida, the Bureau determined that
it was reasonable to take 6-1/2 percent of the vendors' gross profits. If a
vendor were making a net profit of about 20 percent, this set-aside would amount
to one-third of his income.

But in 1972, it emerged that the Bureau of Blind Services was withholding another
five percent of gross profits from the vending operations at Cape Canaveral
(or about another twenty percent of net profits) and transmitting this money
to the recreation fund of the Cape's sighted space workers. When the local newspapers
publicized this illegal additional set-aside, the Bureau stopped withholding
it. This, however, was just the beginning. The stand supervisor then went to
the vendors with a consent form authorizing the Bureau to withhold two percent
of gross profits. When one of the vendors refused to sign this, he was told
he would lose his vending stand. The vendor, James Parkman, went to court.

At this point the Bureau changed its mind. The suit was dropped after the Secretary
of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (of which the Bureau
was a part) issued the following directive:

(A) There shall be no approach of any kind whatsoever to any blind person working
in the vending stand program by any employee or agent of the Bureau of Blind
Services, including any blind person working in the vending stand program, regarding
contributions to the NASA Exchange Council or to any other organization, group,
or fund of any kind except for standard practices such as asking state employees
if they would consider contributing to the United Fund or participating in group
insurance.

(B) There shall be no action taken by the Bureau of Blind Services, its agents,
or employees, including blind persons working in the vending stand program,
adverse to the interest of any blind person working in the vending stand program
because of his refusal to contribute to any organization, group, or fund, including,
but not limited to, the NASA Exchange Council, United Fund, group insurance,
nor shall any such refusal be considered in any manner by Bureau of Blind Services
with regard to any action adverse to the interests of any blind person working
in the vending stand program, including, but not limited to, transfer and termination.

The practice that this directive ended indicated an insensitivity to the rights
of the blind vendors. It also, of course, worked a severe financial hardship
on them. The blind of Florida considered that it was not an example of quality
service. Whether it was or not, it undoubtedly was a violation of federal law.
Throughout this time, the Bureau of Blind Services was accredited by NAC. Despite
the Bureau's violation of the law and its coercion of the blind vendors to stifle
their complaints, the agency was judged by NAC to be maintaining a high standard
of service.

The case of the NAC-accredited Cleveland Society for the Blind is similar to
the one discussed, but it goes much further.

In the early l970s, the Cleveland Society was the so-called nominee agency for the Randolph-Sheppard program in Ohio (that is, the state licensing agency
contracted with the Society to manage the vending program). Each year the Cleveland
Society received a part of its operating budget from the United Torch Services.

The problems with the Society's management of the vending program began to
come to light in the fall of 1972, when Cleo Dolan, executive director of the
Society, sent a memorandum to the vendors stating that we are anticipating and expecting the [snack bar] managers to participate in the United Torch Service
campaign at the same degree as our regular staff persons. We have tentatively
agreed among all of us who are so vitally involved in the United Torch Services
campaign this year, that any gifts less than one-half of one percent of the
total earnings of a worker would not be an acceptable pledge. Once again, we
point out that this 1/2 percent was of gross earnings, or several times that
in net earnings.

When the vendors protested the peremptory tone of Mr. Dolan's memo, he wrote
back, saying: We are concerned that we have undoubtedly not provided sufficient
strong administrative guidelines and have attempted to involve those who are
employed to a greater degree, which apparently has weakened our program.

Mr. Dolan concluded by stating: Again, I personally doubt that you failed
to get the message that we were attempting to communicate, and I think your
interpretation was correct. Namely, we do feel strongly about the support of
the United Torch Services and we doubt that further elaboration on the reasons
should be necessary to this particular group.

Earlier we discussed the amounts that may be set aside by an agency administering
the Randolph-Sheppard program. Shortly after these memos from Mr. Dolan, the
Cleveland Society began deducting an additional set-aside which it called a service charge. At this point the vendors hired a lawyer and began looking
into the Society's management practices. The result was a lawsuit claiming that
the Society had, over the years, withheld funds in excess of $1 million for purposes other than those permitted by the Randolph-Sheppard Vending Stand Act.

This was not the only irregularity found in the Society's management of the
vending program. In order to operate a vending facility, a blind person had
to sign a contract granting the Society the right to summarily terminate his
or her job if the Society decided the vendor had violated any of the contract's
terms. These terms covered such matters as diet, dress, bathing habits, use
of body deodorants, changes of underwear, and nightly sleep most of them in
such discretionary terms that the vendors were at the complete mercy of Mr.
Dolan. Nothing in the Randolph-Sheppard Act gave the Society the authority to
require such a contract, and this too was made part of the vendors' lawsuit.

The federal court has yet to rule on the issues in this suit (there have been
delays involving jurisdictional matters), but the evidence caused the State
of Ohio to terminate its contract with the Society to manage vending stands
on state or federal property.

The National Accreditation Council, however, took no action at all. Despite
the evidence of illegal conduct and, far worse, gross insensitivity to the human
dignity of the blind vendors, NAC continued to regard the Cleveland Society
for the Blind as an example of quality service. It is no coincidence that
at that time Cleo Dolan was a member of the board of trustees of the American
Foundation for the Blind.

A more blatant example than either of these is the Minneapolis Society for
the Blind. As part of its program the Minneapolis Society operates a sheltered
workshop for the blind. The Fair Labor Standards Act allows such workshops to
pay a blind employee less than the statutory minimum wage if it is shown by
a work evaluation that he or she produces less than a sighted worker laboring
in the same conditions.

In 1974, a blind man (Lawrence Kettner) was put through such a work evaluation
by the Minneapolis Society. The Society did not know that Mr. Kettner had already
been hired by a private company at a rate above the minimum wage and was only
seeking temporary employment in the Society's workshop until his other job began.

Mr. Kettner was evaluated over a period of 14 days; but time studies were made
only on the third, fourth, sixth, and eighth days of the period. His duties
were changed thus it was difficult for him to develop proficiency in any one
task. The equipment available to him had breakdowns although he was being measured
against sighted workers using functioning equipment. Finally, there were delays
in receiving supplies yet this was not taken into account by the evaluators.
Still, Mr. Kettner's productivity increased markedly between the time studies
(from 42% of normal productivity to 79%), stressing the gross unfairness of
placing the time studies near the beginning of the evaluation period.

Mr. Kettner was then asked by the Society to sign a minimum-wage waiver indicating
that he was capable of only 75% normal productivity. When he resisted, he was
told he would sign or receive no pay for the work he had done in the workshop.
Needing the money (and with another job already arranged), Mr. Kettner gave
in.

This incident was investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor, which issued
a finding that the Society had violated the regulations promulgated under the
Fair Labor Standards Act.

Once more, here is a violation of the law that is not simply a matter of technical
detail. The violation was committed in order to benefit the agency's administration
at the cost of tangible damage to blind clients. The matter was brought to NAC;
but the Minneapolis Society for the Blind remained an accredited agency.

This was just the beginning. During this same period, the Minneapolis Society
decided to build an addition to its workshop. The contract for mechanical work
was awarded to a firm owned by the man who was both president of the Society
and chairman of the building committee. Although this was widely reported in
the Minnesota press, once again NAC took no action to suspend the Society's
accreditation.

Reacting to such abuses as the Kettner case, a number of blind persons in
Minneapolis decided to seek a voice in the Society's operation. The board of
the Minneapolis Society was elected at an annual meeting by the members of the
Society. The Society raised funds through mail solicitations, and anyone who
donated a dollar or more automatically became a member. So these blind Minnesotans
joined the Society.

The Society reacted by expelling all of the members, limiting membership (and
thus the privilege of electing the board) to the board members themselves. This
action was beyond the board's authority under the articles of incorporation.
Not to be stopped by this, the board now came forth with an amendment to the
articles which it said had been passed in 1966. This amendment granted the board
the power to make further amendments. To be valid, such amendments must be filed
with the Secretary of State of Minnesota. The Society board claimed that although
their amendment had been passed in 1966, it was not filed with the state until 1972 due to a clerical oversight.

When the blind persons who had been expelled began discussing a lawsuit, the
board members realized they had been too hasty. The board reinstated the membership
(although no new members were allowed to join). They also enrolled (without
being requested to do so and without collecting any fees) all the members of
several large community organizations (the Kiwanis Club, the Council for Jewish
Women, etc.). They then called one last membership meeting to gain approval
of their expulsion of the membership. The blind who wanted to join were not
even permitted to attend as observers. They went to court instead.

The court, ruling in July, 1977, declared all of the Society's actions to be
violations of state law and rescinded them. The judge stated:

The only reason, therefore, to terminate membership on April 19, 1972, was
to eliminate the criticism of the Society by the plaintiff members and to preclude
them from increasing their voice in the membership. Membership termination was
a subterfuge for expulsion of the plaintiffs without having to comply with reasonable
procedures for expulsion.

The judge went further: At a time when the evidence clearly reflects the need
for active and concerned board leadership, the Society blatantly rejected the
services of those who had the greatest knowledge of the feelings of the blind
and who had progressed the furthest in overcoming the harsh realities of their
handicap. In so doing, the defendant violated Minnesota [state law].

This matter also was brought to NAC's attention. NAC took no action of any
kind. It is no coincidence that a member of the Minneapolis Society's board
Raymond Kempf is also a member of the NAC Board.

Consumer Participation

These examples the Florida Bureau of Blind Services, the Cleveland Society
for the Blind, and the Minneapolis Society for the Blind speak to the standard
of administrative regularity to be expected in a NAC-accredited agency. NAC
also asserts that its accredited agencies must have a high degree of consumer
participation. (At the 1977 NAC annual meeting, board member Reese Robrahn stated
that NAC is unique in the field of accreditation due to this insistence on consumer
participation.) Considering that the Minneapolis Society was willing to violate
state laws according to the judge for the sole purpose of excluding consumer
participation, some may wonder how NAC defines the concept.

The NAC concept of consumerism is seen more clearly in the events that occurred
at the NAC-accredited Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. The Chicago Lighthouse
manages a large sheltered workshop operation. In 1976, its shops were the subject
of a landmark ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Previously,
such shops were excluded from the protections of the National Labor Relations
Act on the theory that they were rehabilitation programs rather than business
operations. In 1976 the NLRB reversed this position (on the simple evidence
of the large profits of such rehabilitation programs) and ordered a union
election at the Lighthouse.

The National Federation of the Blind, reacting to the abuses of the blind workers,
had been involved in this NLRB decision. (As an example of the sort of thing
we objected to, the Lighthouse created two categories of workers. Sighted workers
who were called workers received the minimum wage and generous fringe benefits.
Blind workers who were called clients received, in general, less than the
minimum wage and no fringe benefits. In many cases there was no difference between
the duties of workers and clients.)

Although about 85 percent of the shop-workers had signed union pledges before
the NLRB ruling, when the election was held the workers voted against a union
68-50. This change of sentiment, it seemed clear to us, was due to the campaign
of intimidation carried out by the Lighthouse management. Even before the election
was held, the principal union organizer was fired. The management worked to
convince the blind workers that a union would mean the end of their jobs and
the closing of the shop. (A charge of unfair labor practices brought by several
of the workers was not accepted by the NLRB, but it is indisputable that today
all of the blind persons who labored to organize a union have been fired or
laid off, as have many of those who voted for a union.)

The Federation considers this series of events an indication that the Chicago
Lighthouse did not maintain a high standard of service to the blind; but it
is brought up here for other reasons: It was one of the first times it became
clear that NAC was actively involving itself in the internal affairs of an agency
of which it was also purporting to be an objective judge. At the 1976 annual
meeting of NAC, Fred McDonald, the executive director of the Lighthouse, made
the following statement:

I want to publicly thank Dick [Richard Bleecker, executive director of NAC]
and NAC for what they did to help me in Chicago at a very, very troubled time.
As you know, I took over there as the new director of the Chicago Lighthouse
just a year ago the first of December; and at that time we were under considerable
fire from the National Federation of the Blind and, on top of that, from a labor
union.

Whether or not you feel that blind shopworkers deserve the legal protections
that are extended to sighted workers, it is surely unheard of for an accrediting
agency to become directly involved in the affairs of an agency it accredits.
Such a practice destroys even the semblance of the objectivity that must be
the dominant characteristic of accreditation.

Returning to the question of consumer participation, it appears to have been
at the instigation of Richard Bleecker that the management of the Lighthouse
decided to organize its own consumer organization made up of blind Lighthouse
staff members. The inference is not farfetched. At the 1976 NAC annual meeting,
Fred McDonald referred to a demonstration planned by the Federation to protest
the firing of the union organizers. He said:

Our friends downstairs, when they arrive in Chicago on Friday, are going to
have a greeting committee of about another 100 blind people that are going to
be carrying placards that say: We speak for ourselves; National Federation of
the Blind does not speak for the blind of this country. And again, the base
of this support has come right from Dick's meeting with our board in Chicago;
and this was very, very important help.

This consumer group was formed by the Lighthouse and named, ironically, the Independent Blind of Illinois. Its president, Dennis Schreiber, is a Lighthouse
staff member. Since then Dennis Schreiber has been active. To give an example
of his activities, a blind federal employee delivered a speech in California.
This blind man began by stating that his views were his own, and that he was
not speaking for the government. Some days later, the head of the agency employing
this man received a letter from Dennis Schreiber, writing as president of the
Independent Blind although the letter was on the stationery of the Chicago Lighthouse,
and suggesting that the agency take action against its employee. The revealing
point was that in his speech this blind man had criticized not the Chicago Lighthouse,
but the American Foundation for the Blind.

At NAC's 1977 annual meeting, Dennis Schreiber carried this further, suggesting:

I am asking you to send telegrams to Governor Robert Ray of Iowa and Acting
Governor Blair Lee [of Maryland], State Capitol, protesting the harassment,
attempts at intimidation, and an attempt at the complete destruction of the
National Accreditation Council. If we can get 100 telegrams on the respective
desks of these Governors from all over the country, we will make these Governors
wonder what is Kenneth Jernigan and Ralph Sanders trying to do.

At the time Ralph Sanders was President of the National Federation of the Blind
and an official in Maryland's programs for the blind. Kenneth Jernigan was the
immediate past President of the Federation and an Iowa state official.

Perhaps the officers of NAC and the Lighthouse would explain this example of quality service by saying that because the National Federation of the Blind
has made strong efforts to reform the National Accreditation Council, National
Federation of the Blind officers both present and past deserve to lose their
personal livelihoods. Even if one were to accept such a justification, it seems
obvious that NAC has put itself in a position where it is impossible to judge
the Lighthouse's program objectively. How could NAC officials take an objective
view of activity they themselves had instigated?

Activities Other Than Accreditation

There might be some justification for interference that sought to upgrade the
programs of an accredited agency. This was not the case in Chicago. In that
instance, and in enough others to form a consistent pattern, NAC began to take
retaliatory action against those who were less than whole-hearted in their partisanship.
At its last two annual meetings, NAC officials have railed against those they
regard as counter-productive elements, and they announced plans for dealing
decisively with these hostile elements.

This retaliatory activity became the province of a group called the National
Committee for the Advancement of Standards or NCAS. At the 1977 annual meeting
the NAC board elevated the NCAS to the same level as its Commission on Standards
and Commission on Accreditation and projected that this new area of activity
would be increasing.

Even before the NCAS was formally organized, NAC had been moving in this strange
new direction. One of the better documented examples concerns the National Council
of State Agencies for the Blind (NCSAB), an organization of directors of state
agencies serving the blind.

During 1975, the members of the NCSAB began questioning the organization's
official position as a supporter of NAC. Finally the organization voted to withdraw
that support pending meaningful reform of NAC.

The next chapter occurred in February, 1976, at a meeting of the Council of
State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR). A small group of
directors of NAC-accredited agencies convened an unauthorized meeting of the
NCSAB. Present at the meeting were NAC president Louis Rives and NAC executive
director Richard Bleecker. The group voted to declare that this was an official
NCSAB meeting. They further voted to declare the office of NCSAB president-elect
vacant, and they then chose one of their number (James Carballo) to fill the vacancy.

Nor did they stop at this. With Richard Bleecker suggesting ways to do it,
the group began changing the NCSAB by-laws. At Louis Rives's suggestion, they
also voted to resume NCSAB support of NAC. As Robert Pogorelc, the actual president
of the NCSAB, later wrote: If the NAC executive director is responsible for
involvement in the 'politics' of private and/or public organizations in the
field, in order to further the cause of NAC, I believe that this fact should
be published.

In a later letter, to NAC president Rives, Mr. Pogorelc was more definite:

It is ridiculous for anyone to pretend that NAC has conducted itself in such
a manner as to serve as a high model for accuracy, fairness, decency, openness,
and propriety. The fact of the matter is that NAC has, in its relations with
the NCSAB, frequently conducted itself in a manner such as to present, at least
in my mind, very serious questions as to appropriateness, propriety, and ethics.
Perhaps some may wish to deny that NAC has frequently, through covert tactics
in which representatives of state agencies have been provided inaccurate and
misleading information outside of the spotlight of a public meeting, injected
itself into the internal affairs of the NCSAB. I very seriously doubt, though,
that those denials would have very much credence with state agency representatives
who have witnessed or been exposed to the process.

After this meeting, James Carballo1 began taking action as president-elect
; he called yet another unauthorized meeting of the NCSAB. The actual NCSAB
sought a judicial restraining order. A Mississippi court (Mr. Carballo lives
in Mississippi) granted the order, enjoining James Carballo from holding himself
out as the president-elect or president of the [NCSAB] and further, from representing
to members of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind and other
interested persons that the unauthorized alleged annual meeting of the NCSAB
scheduled for September 20, 1976, in Hollywood, Florida, is a valid meeting
under the bylaws of the NCSAB.

This court order did not deter NAC for long. The next legally constituted NCSAB
meeting was scheduled to be an election. The NAC-AFB group let it be known (and
this was later publicly admitted at the meeting) that travel expenses were available
to NCSAB members who supported NAC. As a result, many who had previously taken
no active part in the organization turned up for the election, which understandably
produced some officers favorable to NAC. The efforts by NAC to dominate the
NCSAB have continued unchecked.

The pattern was continued when NAC began to organize attacks against agencies
whose only offense was not to seek its accreditation. This came to light when
the Youngstown (Ohio) Society for the Blind decided to seek accreditation from
the Council on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) rather than
NAC. Immediately the Youngstown Society found itself under attack.

The Federation first became aware of this when our Washington, D.C., affiliate
met with Charles Fegan, the director of the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind.
The Columbia Lighthouse at this time was considering whether to renew its NAC
accreditation. Mr. Fegan was explaining to a public meeting that he did not
regard himself a partisan of NAC. To illustrate this, he said he had not complied
with a request that he write to the director of the Youngstown Society, opposing
its decision about NAC. When he was asked who suggested that he write such a
letter, Mr. Fegan demurred, perhaps realizing that he had already said too much,
considering the consequences that had been visited on others who publicly criticized
NAC. In the circumstances, no answer was necessary.

It is important to remember that at this very time the Columbia Lighthouse
was weighing the merits of re-accreditation. The request from NAC had the double
purpose of harassing the Youngstown Society and reminding the Lighthouse of
what would attend a decision not to renew its accreditation.

A month earlier, in March, 1977, Cleo Dolan, executive director of the Cleveland
Society for the Blind, wrote a memorandum to one of his subordinates, which
read in part:

As you know, we have long understood that the Youngstown Society for the Blind
was planning to be accredited by CARF rather than by NAC because of the pressure
from the National Federation of the Blind group. This is in spite of the fact
that CARF has never accredited an agency for the blind, nor do they have standards
for such areas as mobility and home teaching services. It is further our understanding
that the Youngstown Society is proceeding with the approach that CARF standards,
as they must be accredited by July to comply with the RSC policies. [sic]

In light of the above, it is our belief that we should start winding down our relationship with the Youngstown Society for the Blind. It is recognized
that we have funneled the Radio Reading Program state support through the CSB
[the Cleveland Society for the Blind] and had planned on several other cooperative
working arrangements pertaining to the Radio Reading Service including sharing
a WATS line. However, if they are anticipating deserting the field of work
with the blind, then it is our belief we should react the way National Federation
of the Blind has advised their membership and are causing Youngstown to react
accordingly. In other words, if they choose to be accredited under CARF standards,
then we will request that no further cooperation or assistance be afforded the
Youngstown Society for the Blind from any of the staff of the Cleveland Society
for the Blind. We will want to sever all communication and relationship in the
same manner in which it has been recommended that they react with accredited
agencies, since they are willing to follow the dictates and policies of National
Federation of the Blind.

For these reasons we would like to have you clean up all the outstanding obligations
they have in relation to the Radio Reading Service so that all bills can be
paid and we can make a clean break in our relations at the time their final
decision is made with reference to accreditation.

Federation members in Youngstown encouraged the Youngstown Society's decision.
Needless to say, they had no tool of coercion to equal Mr. Dolan's, nor would
they have used it if they had. Mr. Dolan equates failing to seek NAC accreditation
with deserting the field of work with the blind. For him it is reason enough
to attempt to cripple the radio reading service for blind persons in that part
of the state served by the Youngstown Society.

There are many lesser examples of what NAC calls the advancement of standards. When the State of California rescinded a decision to require NAC accreditation
of blind agencies doing business with the state, partly on the advice of a consumer
advisory board, NAC went over the heads of state rehabilitation officials to
complain to Governor Jerry Brown. Writing to the Governor's assistant, Richard
Bleecker stated: I am interested in learning more about the advisory committee's
function, composition, representativeness, and decision-making process. Would
you be so kind as to provide me with a statement of the committee's purpose,
the names of the three organizations that are represented, as well as a copy
of the minutes or other record which contains the substance of the committee's
discussion of the accreditation issue.

When the board of the Illinois Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR)
met to consider a decision by the DVR director to require NAC accreditation
of blind agencies contracting with the state, NAC brought to the meeting Fred
McDonald, executive director of the Chicago Lighthouse. Mr. McDonald acted as
spokesman for the Independent Blind of Illinois. He produced a letter supporting
NAC that had 64 names on it. When the letter was examined, however, it emerged
that the names were not signed but typed. (Since many of the names were of people
in Mr. McDonald's employ, even their signatures would have indicated little
about the independence of their views.)

At this meeting, in response to questions from the DVR board, it was brought
out that NAC had never revoked the accreditation of an agency on its list. This
appeared to carry great weight with the DVR board, which later voted to rescind
the requirement that agencies contracting with the state seek NAC accreditation.
NAC was shown to be an accreditation system without teeth, more interested in
bolstering its prestige with numbers than enforcing high standards of service.

Shortly after the DVR meeting, NAC revoked the accreditation of one of its
agencies. In the circumstances, who would believe that the decision was made
on its objective merits. NAC decided it must have an answer the next time such
a question was raised.

Conclusion

We began this open letter with the premise that the National Accreditation
Council was formed by the American Foundation for the Blind in order to perpetuate
its tradition of benevolent custodialism, and further, that this was not a positive
development. It is a difficult premise to prove because its validity depends
on another premise that the blind are capable of independence and normal lives.

But over the years the problems with NAC have changed in nature as well as
in dimension. This happened because the theory of work with the blind espoused
by NAC has lost ground with the field as with the public it is far more outmoded
now than ten years ago. NAC has had to change its thrust simply to remain in
existence. It has become the focus for the defensive activities of a very small
group of agencies. They are agencies whose directors or programs have been shown
by court decisions, or independent studies, or client experience, or federal
audits to be substandard. They are agencies whose boards, in general, are interlocking
with those of NAC and the American Foundation for the Blind (this has become
more the case over the years).

We support as must all people of sense the desire of a school or agency to
be approved by a reputable accrediting body. But those responsible for making
this decision should examine what they are purchasing. NAC accreditation is
expensive: it is a commitment of either public tax money or funds contributed
by a charitable public. The only valid justification for devoting funds to accreditation
is that such accreditation ensures the maintenance of high program standards.
With relation to NAC, such a contention becomes absurd in light of NAC's approval
of the actions of the Florida agency, the Cleveland Society, the Minneapolis
Society, and the Chicago Lighthouse, and its own actions regarding the NCSAB,
the Columbia Lighthouse, the Youngstown Society, and the California Department
of Rehabilitation.

A majority of agencies and consumers has concluded that NAC accreditation does
not ensure high standards of service. It lends an agency no respectability or
credibility whatever.

FOOTNOTE

1. James Carballo is the director of Mississippi's Vocational Rehabilitation for the Blind, an agency accredited by NAC. An
audit of the agency completed by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in late 1977 provides a clear example of what NAC
considers quality service. According to the Jackson Capitol Reporter of December 1, 1977:

The audit, a copy of which was secured by the Capitol Reporter, reveals
that out of 138 blind rehabilitation clients randomly selected by the HEW auditors,
only one had finally been placed in a job in the competitive market. Even then,
the audit showed, the one blind person had to take a job as a clerk, whereas
she was trained to be a special education teacher.

Out of 526 blind persons the state agency had shown as rehabilitated in fiscal
1976, the audit shows, almost 85 percent were making less than $2.50 an hour
and most were making less than the minimum wage.

The state agency, according to the audit, violated federal regulations by using
Social Security trust funds, Supplemental Security Income funds, income derived
in part from use of federal funds, income from vending stands operated by the
blind, and contributions from vendors paid in part with federal funds to match
federal funds.

Mr. Carballo's part in the NCSAB affair and the results of this HEW audit taken
together are a clear paradigm of NAC accreditations: NAC provides its seal of
approval to a substandard rehabilitation program; In return the agency publicly
supports NAC (or, as in this case, goes a good deal further).

By the mid-1980s it was clear that NAC was disintegrating. As major state programs
for the blind dissociated themselves from the organization and rejected its
accreditation, NAC moved to recruit smaller and less well-known groups to bolster
its numbers. Articles appearing in the Braille Monitor in 1986 and 1987
graphically illustrate what was happening. Excerpts and representative headlines
follow:

NAC Bites the Dust in Kansas: Braille Monitor, March, 1986

Actually it happened on the last day of 1985, but on January 10, 1986, it became
official: Kansas State Services for the Blind renounced NAC's accreditation.

Division of Services for the Blind Supervisor's Meeting Minutes
January 17,
1986

Present: Suzannah Erhart
Jayne Frost
Caroline Lauer
Richard Schutz
Robert Sheldon

NAC has been notified that DSB [Division of Services for the Blind] plans to
discontinue NAC accreditation. CARF [Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation
Facilities] accreditation for the rehabilitation center and Kansas Industries
for the Blind should be pursued. Richard Schutz will order the necessary CARF
materials.

Michigan School for the Blind De-NACs Braille Monitor, March, 1986

In a brief news release issued in early February the Michigan Department of
Education announced that the Michigan School for the Blind (MSB) would not seek
re-accreditation by the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving
the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC). The announcement declared that the
residential facility could better serve its students by undertaking its own
self-study, using an in-state monitoring team. The message was clear MSB had
decided to de-NAC.

North Carolina Gives NAC the Boot: Braille Monitor, December, 1986

In the March, 1986, Braille Monitor we reported that the National Accreditation
Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) had been
kicked out of Kansas and Michigan. Now, NAC faces new disasters. North Carolina
is joining the parade.

The National Federation of the Blind of North Carolina held its annual convention
during the weekend of September 12-14, 1986, in Raleigh. One of the items which
was slated to receive attention was the accreditation of the Governor Morehead
School for the Blind by NAC. The school had been accredited since 1972, and
the blind of the state were determined to bring the nonsense to an end. A resolution
had been drafted and was slated for presentation on Sunday morning, September
14; but it never happened. On Saturday afternoon, September 13, Dr. Richard
Rideout (drector of the Division of Special Schools for the Blind and Deaf of
the Department of Human Resources) announced to the cheering delegates that
the Governor Morehead School had decided to end the NAC accreditation.

NAC often talks about the good which it has done and the general public acceptance
which it is receiving. However, if any of its board members are at all perceptive
or concerned about the way the blind (the people they supposedly do so much
to help) feel, they should think long and carefully about the reaction in North
Carolina. At the announcement that the Governor Morehead School would de-NAC
the blind cheered. When the school gives up its accreditation, no facility working
with the blind anywhere in the state will be NAC-accredited. As the joyous delegates
chanted: NC is NAC-Free.

Memorandum

To: Richard Rideout, Director
Division of Special School for the Blind and Deaf Department of Human Resources
From: George N. Lee, Superintendent GovernorMorehead School
Re: NAC Accreditation

The Governor Morehead School has just been reaccredited by Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools for the next five years. This is important to our school.

The school has also been accredited by the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Impaired since 1972.

I do not believe that NAC accreditation has or will have any positive impact
on educational programs here at Governor Morehead School. Fact is I can't really
think of any real benefits of NAC accreditation.

NAC Thrown Out in Rhode Island: Braille Monitor, December, 1986

The past year has been a time of hardship for NAC (the National Accreditation
Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped). A few months
ago NAC was told it wouldn't be needed anymore in Kansas. At about the same
time it got a similar message from Michigan. And these messages didn't come
from small, insignificant agencies. They came from the Kansas State Services
for the Blind and the Michigan School for the Blind. This fall it was the turn
of North Carolina. The Governor Morehead School for the Blind (North Carolina's
residential school) decided NAC accreditation was not worth continuing. As the
superintendent of the school pointed out, the institution had been accredited
for more than a dozen years, so it was in a position to know whether or not
NAC accreditation is beneficial.

NAC keeps trying to smile bravely, but the rejection slips keep coming. This
time it is Rhode Island. At the annual state convention of the National Federation
of the Blind of Rhode Island on September 27, 1986, a representative of the
State Services for the Blind announced that NAC accreditation was being dropped
at the end of 1986. The blind of the state were overjoyed and greeted the news
with cheers.

American Foundation for the Blind Criticizes NAC: Braille Monitor,
January, 1987

National Braille Association Cuts its Ties With NAC: Braille Monitor,
September, 1987

As everybody knows, the last couple of years have been a bad time for NAC (the
National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped).
The North Carolina school for the blind, the Michigan State School for the Blind,
Kansas State Services for the Blind, Rhode Island State Services for the Blind,
and others decided they had had enough and withdrew. There is an old saying
to the effect that nothing wins like success. The reverse of that coin is that
nothing loses like failure and NAC certainly offers graphic testimony to the
truth of it all.

One of the latest to leave NAC's sinking ship is NBA (the National Braille
Association). Established in 1945, the NBA is described in the 1984 edition
of the American Foundation for the Blind Directory of Agencies Serving the
Blind in the U.S. as follows: Brings together those interested in production
and distribution of Braille, large type, and tape recorded materials for the
visually impaired. NBA Braille Book Bank provides thermoform copies of hand-transcribed
texts to college students and professional persons; NBA Braille Technical Tables
Bank has a collection of over 300 tables which supplement many of the texts;
through NBA Reader-Transcriber Registry blind people can obtain vocational daily
living material at below cost; through Braille Transcription Assignment Service
requests of college students for Brailled textbooks are filled. Publications
to aid transcribers include: Manual for Large Type Transcribing and Tape
Recording Manual, 3rd Ed., available from LC/DBPH; Teacher's Manual and Tape
Recording Lessons, from NBA national office; Guidelines for Administration
of Groups Producing Reading Materials for the Visually Handicapped, from LC/DBPH; Handbook for Braille Music Transcribers, from LC/DBPH; and NBA Bulletin,
issued four times a year to membership, available in print, Braille, or tape.

This is how the National Braille Association is described by the American Foundation
for the Blind. Put briefly, it is the nationwide organization of transcribers.
It has both prestige and stability. It has been one of NAC's sponsors from the
very beginning. Therefore, its withdrawal must be particularly troubling to
NAC.

No NAC for Mississippi Industries for the Blind: Braille Monitor, October-November,
1987

The foregoing excerpts from the Braille Monitor show clearly the pattern
of NAC's decline in the eighties. In state after state NAC found itself rejected
and on the defensive. By the end of 1989 the American Foundation for the Blind
had reduced its long-standing contributions, and agency after agency had withdrawn.
The NAC board had been reduced in size, and there was widespread speculation
that the demise of the organization was imminent. The majority of the knowledgeable
blind of the nation, along with most responsible agencies in the field, were
now finding NAC a stumbling block to progress and a hindrance rather than a
help.
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