Resolution 2020-28: Regarding the Accessibility of American Radio Relay League’s Digital Content 

WHEREAS, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the preeminent organization of amateur radio operators in the United States; and

WHEREAS, the ARRL has avoided making its principal magazine, QST, available to its blind members because the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), a program of the Library of Congress, has published this magazine in an accessible format; and

WHEREAS, this practice continued even though the ARRL has been publishing QST on the web for several years; and

WHEREAS, the NLS version of QST is not as timely as the ARRL’s web version and does not contain all of the information that the web version contains, which places blind ham radio operators at a disadvantage; and

WHEREAS, since nonvisually accessible publishing software exists, the National Federation of the Blind’s Amateur Radio Division has approached several of the ARRL’s directors and vice directors requesting that the web edition of QST be published with nonvisually accessible software, but thus far has been met with avoidance, stalling tactics, and referrals to staff, and therefore no action has been taken to date; and
WHEREAS, this year the ARRL published three more of its magazines on the web, still in an inaccessible format, released nonvisually accessible apps, while proclaiming that all its members can read and use all four of its magazines on the web or on the app: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this eighteenth day of July, 2020, that this organization condemn and deplore the discriminatory behavior of ARRL toward its blind members by refusing to provide accessible digital content; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that ARRL immediately adopt policies and procedures to ensure that all present and future digital content be published in an accessible format on all of its platforms.