Announcer:
Live life you want. Nobody can stop you. Shoot for the sun and break on through.
The following message is brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President National Federation of the Blind.
Live the life you want. Yes, we know the truth..
Mark Riccobono:
Yes, we know the truth. Greetings fellow Federationist. Today is Wednesday, April 29th, 2026. And this is presidential release number 560 for the month of May 2026. Then I'd like to welcome you to what I'm calling May the Promise Be Fulfilled Month in the National Federation of the Blind.
I have to say this is probably one of the most important and urgent releases that I have recorded during my past years here in the Office of the President. Past 12 years, that is. My goal on this release is to prepare every member of the Federation in every chapter across the country to take advocacy action this month to advance the work that we're doing as the issue that I'm going to discuss with you today affects truly every single blind person and our future interactions with our society. So let me set the stage for what we're going to talk about on this release.
The specific issue at hand is that since 2010, the National Federation of the Blind has urged the federal government to establish regulations under the Americans With Disabilities Act to ensure that specific requirements exist for digital tools like websites and mobile apps used by entities that are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act or otherwise known as the ADA, that those tools are accessible to blind people and others with disabilities.
In 2024, part of that regulation that we requested was fulfilled and was supposed to go into at least partial effect on April 24th of this year, so just five days ago. And at the very last minute, the government announced that it was delaying this rule.
Before you start saying, "Well, this is getting confusing." I really want to give you enough background so that every member really understands this issue, why it's important, what it means, and what's needed at the moment.
So before we get into too much detail, let's give a little background on what we are talking about. First of all, the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA is the law passed by Congress and signed by the president in 1990, which provides people with disabilities, certain rights and guarantees under the law.
The law is organized into five titles. You might think of them as chapters in a book. Each title covers a different area of concern. For those of you who don't know, let me give you kind of the plain language overview of each title and what it addresses in a very basic sense so that we're all operating from that same point of view.
Title one of the ADA, and by the way, these titles are numbered, but they're written in Roman numerals and oftentimes they're referred to by the title. So Title I covers employment, and this title says that most employers cannot discriminate against qualified people with disabilities in hiring, in pay, in promotions or other aspects of work, and it gives details about that.
Title two of the ADA is directed at state and local government agencies, and it says that state and local governments must make their programs, services, and public transportation fully accessible to people with disabilities.
Title III of the ADA, which is what a lot of people tend to think about related to this law, Title III relates to public accommodations. So this title has to do with businesses and nonprofit organizations that serve the public and says that these entities must provide equal access to their full range of goods and services and facilities.
So that's Title III of the ADA. Those are the ones that we most often talk about in our work. Real quickly, Title IV covers telecommunications. It talks about telephone and communication services and about how they must be accessible and available to people, especially those with hearing loss and speech disabilities. This is where programs like the relay service are covered.
And Title V is really just a miscellaneous title. It provides provisions and clarification on various items. Those are the five titles of the Americans with Disabilities Act, very plain language. Now, the National Federation of the Blind has been raising the bar since 1990 about how the Americans with Disabilities Act is understood in day-to-day practice in society.
We've done this through our advocacy work, through our legal work, through our public education work. So Federation members have been applying the law in innovative ways so that we can continue to raise expectations throughout society.
And really, we have been responsible for a lot of the high expectation frameworks that have existed since 1990. Since the late 1990s, we have been working very directly through negotiated settlements, through court victories, to make it clear that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to entities, both Title II entities and Title III entities.
These are often called covered entities under the law, that digital products and services are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The courts have already agreed with us on many occasions. We could cite many Federation lawsuits in this regard. All of these settlements and lawsuits over the past many decades now have been posted to our website.
We've been very transparent and clear about the kind of accessibility that we are seeking from really any entity that's covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it's to the credit of the Federation that these cases have been successful.
Governments and businesses have known about the work that we're doing because many of them have been subject to our advocacy work. One of the things that government and businesses have claimed over the years is that the reason they're not accessible is because the standards aren't clear on what accessibility means.
How do they know when they've met the high standard that the Federation or others want in terms of equal access? And so the governments, local governments, state governments, businesses have asked the federal government for clarity on these issues.
Even though we have made it clear in the work that we've done, our settlements, our legal victories, what that standard is. And although we've helped to create that standard, we've agreed with the local governments and businesses that wanted a standard. We told the federal government, "We think there should be a standard.
We think you should federal government create regulations to give that clarity to these covered entities that seem to be unclear about what equal access means, even though we believe the law already is clear and that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires it. " In 2010, the United States Department of Justice released an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking.
This is the first step in creating government regulations under any law. And at that time, we celebrated the fact that this ANPRM was made available. The initial announcement in July 2010 was that the government intended to create regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title III. So these would be separate rulemakings because they relate to different covered entities, different titles of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Our organization has been engaged in public comments, advocacy work since 2010 to get these regulations to move forward. Now that's four political administrations, the Obama administration, the first Trump administration, the Biden administration, and now the second Trump administration. That's a lot of time that we have spent.
Announcer:
In 2024, we celebrated the fact that the United States Department of Justice released its long awaited regulations related to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and how covered entities should make their website mobile apps, digital assets accessible to people with disabilities.
When that came out, the announced deadline for this to go into full effect, or at least partial effect was April 24th, 2026, just a few days ago. There were some smaller covered entities that had a little bit of additional time, but April 24, 2026 was the important date. The regulation was negotiated through broad participation by people with disabilities and covered entities.
Everybody had plenty of time to give their feedback. And these regulations are a compromise because they in fact add five new classes of exception to the requirements under the law that are additional defenses to the ones that are already available within the Americans with Disabilities Act without these regulations.
Mark Riccobono:
So the governments that are covered under Title II got some benefit because they got additional exceptions into the law, but yet we said we recognized that having a standard, that the idea that equal access is important is still better, even if we don't think those additional five exceptions are necessary.
Government, educational facilities, they all asked for these regulations for this clarity, but as the date got closer, they started putting pressure on the administration to make further changes. We still believed that the standard was going to go into effect. We did a lot of advocacy work over the last few months, and much to our regret.
The Department of Justice took a turn in a very bad direction. Now, I want to also say that the standards that have been set, although they haven't been in the regulations, they are the standards that the United States Department of Justice has used in its own settlement agreements with public entities.
So even in the absence of regulation, the Department of Justice itself has said that these standards apply under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And so at the very last minute, in the last 10 days or so, the Department of Justice announced that it wants blind people and others with disabilities to wait even longer.
They are basically signaling that they are going back to the drawing board for a do over, even though we have waited for well over a decade, even though that this has been negotiated with all stakeholders having an opportunity to give input. This is outrageous. And if it wasn't outrageous enough, it's not only that the government has said it's going to delay the implementation date, but it has also signaled that it is willing to look at other aspects of this regulation that it might change.
So although we've negotiated it, it's completely willing to open up the discussions to go back to step one. And keep in mind, this is only for Title II. The Title III regulations are still sitting, haven't moved, and there continues to be the lack of clarity in the marketplace that public businesses and nonprofits have also asked for. This is outrageous, and we need every member of the National Federation of the Blind to take action because it does, will, and will continue to have an impact on your life.
So let me talk to you very plainly about what we need you to do following this meeting where you may be hearing this release. We need every member, every single member to submit your story regarding barriers that you have encountered in state or local government, websites, mobile apps, or similar technologies where you've experienced barriers in public education programs, whether they be K-12, public universities, community colleges, et cetera.
We need you to submit those stories and you can submit them via voice to our podcast line where you can just leave a voicemail and that will be helpful in our podcast efforts and we'll also use that in our advocacy work. To do that, you can leave a recording of your story at 410-659-9314. That's of course the Federation's main number, dial extension 2244. So really easy. 2244. You can also submit your story if you prefer via email.
You can do that in writing or attach an audio file. Just email that to [email protected], [email protected]. Please be sure to give us your contact information so we can do any follow up that might be necessary regarding your story. This is something that each and every member of the Federation should do. We need you to do this and don't delay. We need you to do it by May 31st.
It's really critical in this 60 day window we have to gain momentum around these stories. We need you to take this action. We need chapters to help individuals take this action if they require it. Your short story, your first person account of how you have encounters barriers will make a big difference. What kind of stories are we looking for? Well, barriers related to a state or local government website that you needed to use for really whatever purpose.
It could be on an ongoing basis. It could be to pay your water bill. It could be to look up public information. There's so many things. Barriers that you have encountered in education of all types, in public education, barriers that you've encountered where you've needed to fill out forms.
In education, this could be because you're a student or maybe you're a parent of a student in public education and you've faced barriers getting access to information about your children. These are all things that we need to hear from you about your firsthand stories will make a big difference.
Now, that's the basics of what's happening right now, and it is a very, very urgent time. I hope that we've made it clear, and I've been able to clarify for you what the Americans with Disabilities Act is and why this matters today. Now, some of you may say, "That's great.
I already knew some of that. I'd like to dig a little deeper into this issue and understand more. I'm not going to cover that on this release, but I do want to call your attention to the fact that the National Federation of the Blind has already submitted its public comments regarding this new interim final rule, further delaying our access to Title II covered entities under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
You can read our full public comments, which have been submitted to the government by going to our website, nfb.org/advocacy and going to our policy section, you'll find our public comments, read them. This goes into great detail about our outreach, why this is a nonsensical action on behalf of the government, why it violates the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it goes into footnoting all of the journey that we have been on since the government first promised to work on this in July of 2010.
There are other resources on our website about this. I don't want you to get distracted by those because most importantly, we need your firsthand stories. We need them now. We need them before the end of May. And if there are members in your chapter who need help submitting their firsthand story, please help them.
We're going to use these stories to push back in a big way on the government, and it's going to take every single one of us to do something about it. And the beauty of it is we can do something about it. We know that collective action works, and we know that the Federation does not give up.
And so I want to thank you in advance for your work to push back on this outrageous action on behalf of the federal government to yet again, delay our equal access to full participation in our society.
Now, I want to end on a much more positive note. So I do have one Federation Family news note for you, and that is to say that I'm pleased to share the news that Garrett Mooney and Brittany Bomboy welcomed baby Madeline Grace Mooney on March 22nd, 2026.
Madeline weighed in at 10 pounds, and although Madeline has had some struggles here in the first couple weeks of life, the family is doing well. You should know that Garrett serves as president of the Maryland Organization of Parents of Blind Children in our Maryland affiliate, and Brittany has been an active member in our Maryland affiliate, especially helping with youth programs.
Madeline's older siblings are doing well. Big brother Matthew, who is two years old, and bigger sister Braelyn, who is 11 years old, are very excited to welcome along with the rest of us, Madeline to the family, but also as the newest member of the National Federation of the Blind.
Now, in closing on this release, I do want to thank you for showing up and doing the work of the organized blind movement. It does make a difference, and as you've heard this month, it makes a difference in a very real way in the lives of all of us.
At the end of this release, we've added a little bonus, which is the audio from the video that I did, literally moments after the government announced the interim final rule, proposing to delay these regulations a little longer.
So if you weren't outraged already, watch the video, and I hope you are as outraged as I am, but also as hopeful about what we can do together because of the organization that we have. In closing, I do want to wish all of the moms in the Federation a very happy Mother's Day, including my own mom, who's an active member of the Milwaukee chapter of the Federation.
Thank you to all the moms out there. We love you all and appreciate everything that you do as moms. Now, since we've been talking a little bit on this release about government, I thought I'd give you some customary endings that are a little bit political.
Why did the county legislator fall asleep? He was one of the board members.
Where can children vote? Well, that would be in a swing state, of course.
And what's the biggest problem with political jokes? Well, too many of them get elected.
Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.
I'm Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, and I'm here in our empty computer lab to talk about our outrage that the United States Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights has released an interim final rule related to ADA Title II, web accessibility and digital regulations.
Why am I here in this empty room? Because the government has said it's okay for blind people to continue to wait, to get equal access to state government, education, and other forms of digital access through Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
But wait, we have been waiting for two years since this rule was announced two years ago. So we've been waiting, outrageous that we should wait longer, but it gets even worse because it hasn't just been two years. The original advanced rulemaking was 16 years ago in 2010.
Blind people have been waiting to get access to paying our taxes, to education, to so many government services waiting. But it's been even longer than that.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, this promise was given to Americans with disabilities in 1990. 1990. America is celebrating this year, our 250th anniversary of the promise that this nation makes for equal access.
And we've been guaranteed this promise, not just in the Constitution, but through the Americans with Disabilities Act starting in 1990, outrageous that the Department of Justice wants us to wait even longer.
The National Federation of the Blind is prepared to continue to advocate and to continue to push forward to make sure that blind people no longer have to wait for the doors to be open for us to have equal access to the digital services provided by our state and local governments.
Announcer:
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314. [email protected]. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @[email protected]. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.