Blind Prof’s Grant Request Rejected For Typing Error Government Waits 6 Months To Tell Him He Needed To Double-Space His Form

A blind physicist who wants to develop a Braille system for computers submitted a grant request to the Education Department. But it was rejected: The typewritten application wasn’t double-spaced.

“I think it is absurd I would be punished because of this minor technicality,” said John Gardner, an Oregon State University professor who is an expert in new information technologies for the disabled.

“Actually, the blind people of the world are being punished because they will have to wait for this technology,” he said Monday in a telephone interview from Corvallis, Ore.

Gardner said his assistant mistakenly typed the application single spaced and in a font smaller than what the department prefers.

“I’m blind. I couldn’t tell it was single-spaced,” he said.

He and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are appealing to Education Secretary Richard Riley to reverse the decision, which they say amounts to discrimination.

Wyden said in a letter to Riley it is a “case of bureaucracy prevailing over common sense.”

He said the professor submitted his proposal before the April 14 deadline, but wasn’t notified until nearly six months later “that the proposal had been rejected without review, because of a typographical quibble.”

Gardner invented DotsPlus, a program for printing tactile graphics for the visually impaired. He had asked the Education Department for about $300,000 for a two-year study he says could revolutionize their access to math, science, graphs and maps.

Riley had no immediate response, department spokeswoman Julie Green said.

Ann Queen, an Education Department team leader handling grants and contracts, notified Gardner on Sept. 29 that the secretary was required to reject “without consideration or evaluation any application that does not meet the criteria.”

“Your application was not double-spaced and a smaller than 12 point font was used. For this reason, your application is being returned and will not be considered for further funding,” she wrote.

Gardner acknowledged that “one of the sneaky things authors do” is single-space applications in small type so as to squeeze in extra information.

Gardner said he does not believe the department intentionally discriminated against the disabled.

“They enforce this rule rigidly, mindlessly, stupidly against everyone,” he said.