---
title: "Do current US state-level Nemeth-vs-UEB-Math instructional mandates split along the same lines as the 1871-1932 Braille/New York Point standards war?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
date_raised: "2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["disability-history","braille","tactile-technology","standards-wars","accessibility-tech"]
---


[[claim-bana-2012-ueb-adoption-kept-nemeth-code-parallel]] establishes that BANA's 2012 UEB adoption left Nemeth Code alive as a parallel official code for math/science braille, with no single US mandate — the source capture's hop chain noted this "per secondary sources not independently re-verified" and flagged the state-by-state pattern as "not checked."

The open question: do individual US states' current instructional mandates (which code state departments of education, schools for the blind, or transcription agencies default to for math/science) cluster in any way that echoes the older regional/institutional split between Braille and New York Point adopters (1871-1932), covered at [[claim-war-of-the-dots-competing-braille-systems-1829-1932]]? Or is today's split uncorrelated with the historical one — a fresh line drawn on different grounds (curriculum-era, transcriber training pipelines, particular state Blind schools' institutional lineage)?

What's needed to answer this:

- A primary or Tier 1-2 roster of current state-by-state Nemeth vs. UEB-Math mandates (candidate sources: BANA itself, National Braille Association, American Council of the Blind's braille-education committee, or state Department of Education special-education transcription guidance documents).
- A primary historical roster of which US states/institutions adopted Braille vs. New York Point vs. American Braille during 1871-1932 (candidate: APH's own historical archives, or a scholarly history of American braille standardization) to compare against.

Not chased in the 2026-07-09 capture or its promotion; flagged as a genuine gap rather than answered.

**2026-08-22 progress (partial — left open).** A directly-routed capture found a modern state count on a Tier 3 advocacy source ([[claim-bear-2022-count-most-us-states-default-to-nemeth-for-technical-braille]]: 31 states + DC default Nemeth, 7 default UEB, 11 leave it to the IEP team, 1 undecided, as of 2022) and a rich Tier 2 primary account of the historical war's institution-by-institution mechanics ([[claim-1871-1932-braille-standards-war-fought-institution-by-institution-not-fixed-lines]]), plus a structural finding that complicates the question's own premise: the two disputes aren't the same *kind* of fight — 1871-1932 pitted physically different tactile cells against each other, while the current dispute is a convention split within one already-standardized cell ([[claim-nemeth-ueb-split-is-a-notation-convention-not-a-competing-script-dispute]]). Still missing, and still the crux of this question: (1) a primary (Tier 1-2) roster to check the 31/7/11/1 figure against, and (2) any source anywhere that actually overlays the historical state/institution adoption map onto the current one — none was found. [[claim-nfb-2016-warned-ueb-rollout-could-repeat-1871-1932-fragmentation]] shows the field itself feared this exact parallel in 2016, but as a warning, not a finding. Left `status: open` — the comparison this question asks for has still not been done by anyone in the citable literature.

**2026-09-19 progress (partial — left open).** A follow-up capture (2026-09-16), run a month later with different query strategies, surfaced one substantial earlier primary — Cook Walker's December 2015 *Braille Monitor* essay "A Cry for Unity" — but not the overlay itself. Two new notes: [[claim-cook-walker-2015-named-war-of-the-dots-and-logged-earliest-nemeth-ueb-state-roster]] (the field named the "War of the Dots" *by title* a month before rollout, and logged the earliest located state roster — 14 of 21 declared states retaining Nemeth) and [[claim-nemeth-ueb-state-split-settled-gradually-2015-2022-not-at-rollout]] (the split accreted gradually 2015→2022 rather than snapping into place at rollout, a process-resemblance to Irwin's institution-by-institution history that survives even with both counts flagged). What is now firmer: the parallel was invoked self-consciously *at the moment of formation*, not only in hindsight. What is still absent, and still the crux: no primary Tier-1 roster on either the modern side or the 1871-1932 side, and still no source that overlays the two maps. The historical side would need a real institution-by-institution roster (candidate: the AAIB's 1871-1880 convention proceedings, Internet Archive) before an overlay is even resourceable. Stays `status: open`.