History of the Gallaudet Protest and Brief Thoughts About the Future

As most of you must know by now that Jane K. Fernandes's [JKF] role as the next president of Gallaudet has been terminated by the Board of the Trustees [BoT]. What a huge victory this was! I really wanted to stay hopeful but wasn't sure how this would end. Before I discuss this more into depth, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the protest when it first began, and the experiences that happened up to the day JKF's presidency was terminated. Bear with me, but this may be long.

On September 1, 2005, I. King Jordan [IKJ] announced that he plans to retire, thus, a president search process would begin. Yet a bit later, he introduced JKF as president and then immediately corrected himself and said University Provost instead. This obviously made people uneasy. During the search process, there were six people being considered, which were narrowed down to three. People started to voice their concerns about the final three and questioned why Dr. Anderson, a black man with a PhD was overlooked for the final three, despite the fact that he outranked a white man, Ron Stern, with only a master, and Anderson also had more experience on an administrative level than Stern does [in fact Stern only has experience on a high school level]. During this time, a group of Deaf black students became very concerned that the president search was flawed and began to voice the concerns out to others.

The students and faculty voiced out their opinions on the final three candidates, and the results were that 81% students felt that JKF was unacceptable, and 64% of Gallaudet Faculty said that JKF was unacceptable. JKF was clearly the most unwanted one out of the three. However, JKF was selected by the BoT to be the next president of Gallaudet, much to the dismay of, well, almost everybody. I feel that it's necessary to list the reasons why so many people had no confidence in JKF as president:

-JKF's role as Director of Pre-College National Mission Programs, now known as Clerc Center which is a high school and elementary school on the campus of Gallaudet University, did not help PCNMP. Before she arrived, the school had a very impressive record of academic excellence, the best out of the country [deaf-wise]. After she left, the school was drastically different, and not for the better. In October, teachers and staff from Clerc Center wrote a letter showing their support for the resignation of JKF and finally voiced out their experiences while JKF was Director. In the letter, they revealed that JKF closed many jobs, departments, and programs that were essential for the good of the student's future. Classrooms were expanded drastically with many levels of instructional needs, more than the teachers could handle, which resulted to special needs students sitting in class without access to help, and unable to contribute. When the teachers and staff asked JKF for advice and input, she responded by saying that they were to make decisions for themselves and criticized their "incompetency". JKF basically left the staff and teachers to somehow deal with all the changes she made for the school without a back up plan or guide and did not think about how the sudden changes would affect the students and the school as a whole. The teachers and staff report that "to continue our employment, we had to endure an atmosphere of distrust and fear." They also add that during JKF's time at PCNMP, "enrollment plummeted, only to increase dramatically after her departure from the Clerc Center."

-JKF then became Provost of Gallaudet University in 2000. By this time, there were problems on campus such as Audism [discrimination and misconceptions about the Deaf by hearing and d/Deaf people alike], and people were starting to recognize the problem and want changes. It was noted that not all teachers, administration, and campus police [in fact very few campus police were even close to being fluent] were fluent in ASL [American Sign Language]. The lack of communication between campus police and students resulted into many injuries, and one must add that one student, Carl Durpree [as noted in my last article], was killed due to this problem. JKF failed to respond to these issues for years, and the problem is very much alive to this very day. In addition, during her tenure as Provost, Gallaudet's program assessment was marked as ineffective. Here's a quote from the assessment: "For example, Gallaudet graduates who find employment commensurate with their education declined from 90% in 2001 to 69% in 2005."

With all the bad history, and unsuccessful work JKF had at PCNMP & Gallaudet University, it was obvious why many people were shocked when BoT selected JKF to be Gallaudet's next president in May. Immediately, a protest organized by the FSSA coalition [FSSA: faculty, staff, students, and alumi who oppose JKF as president]. Tent City was born. The administration, IKJ & JKF did not hesitate to spread the word that the protest was about JKF "not being deaf enough" because she grew up as an oral person and learned ASL in her 20's [I must note, however, that she still does not sign in fluent ASL, and chooses to use sim-com instead which has been proved to be a failure in education]. FSSA responded back with the statement that the FSSA group was diverse and most certainly included people who were oral and yet do not support JKF as president, also that they oppose JKF because she is unqualified to lead, and it has nothing to do with her history as an oral person. I will note though that some people probably did not like JKF as they did not consider her "deaf enough" but I strongly stress that this was not the reason why FSSA and the protest was against JKF as president. Unfortunately, the media continued to mostly report on the "not deaf enough" excuse instead of the truth. After JKF was selected, a faculty meeting was held and 66% of the faculty voted no confidence in JKF. Tent City had to close on May 31st since Gallaudet was closing for the summer. But it was promised that Tent City would return.

During summer, the administration worked hard to keep spreading the word on the "not deaf enough", promoting JKF, and planning for the return of Tent City. Once students returned to Gallaudet, they had to come to face with extremely extensive rules about freedom of speech to the point where it was nearly impossible for anyone to voice any kind of opposition toward JKF without getting in trouble for it. By the end of September, some students were brave enough this time around to don the status of student leaders. The leaders were: Ryan Commerson, Chris Corrigan, Tara Holcomb, Leah Katz-Hernandez, Delia Lozano-Martinez, and LaToya Plummer.

During the end of September, I started to learn about the struggles at Gallaudet, and the protest. I was oblivious of all this as I never was very connected to the Deaf community due to the fact that I was mainstreamed [I was the only deaf student in every school but two out of seven schools] and grew up in a mostly hearing world. For the first time in a long time, I felt an incredible urge to get involved and show my support. In turn I became Deaf, and am no longer deaf. I won't get into this though, as I have already covered that here. I began to obsessively do research, collect information, and spent many nights glued to the computer screen.

On October 1st, the promise that Tent City would return, was fulfilled. However early in the morning, the staff of the University was ordered to put fertilizer on the ground where Tent City was to be. It was never proved that this was an attempt to stall Tent City, but it is quite a coincidence. On October 2nd, the student leaders of Tent City were told that their City was illegal, and that if the city was still up by 11pm, Tent City would be banned for the rest of the week. On October 4th, 300 students walked out of class, and walked to IKJ's office, asking to talk with IKJ. IKJ kept his door closed. The teachers and faculty requested a discussion to be reopened as promised in May, but this request was ignored by the University. On October 5th, the Student Body Government announced that Friday was the deadline for dialogue between the IKJ and Bot. No attempts were made for communication from the President or Board of Trustees. Due to the lack of communication, students decided to take over the main academic building of the University and lock it down as an attempt to get the attention of BoT and start up a dialogue.

The next day, students woke up to officers from the Department of Public Safety (DPS) barging into the building. The officers could not sign, so the protestors were clueless as to the reason why this was happening. Students were terrified, confused, bewildered, and worse yet, the security officer resorted to shoving and hitting students. After they successfully got the officer to leave the building, it was discovered that several students were injured. This was a peaceful protest, so the violence by the DPS was completely unprovoked.

At this point, supportive tent cities began to appear all over the world, such as several in almost every state of USA, as well in Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Chile, and Brazil.

On October 9th, the SGB President, Noah Beckman, negotiated with the administration for a resolution. The students requested for 24/7 safe zones for the protest to be created and if this was granted, they would cease lock-down. The request was denied. This lock-down continued, and in addition, the campus was locked down as well. Yet the students of Clerc Center were still allowed to enter. During the initial lock-down of the campus, media arrived without interpreters and made it difficult for the protestors to voice out the reason behind the lock down and the protest itself. Also, the administration stopped paying the interpreters, and most of the interpreters were unable to work for free and provide interpreting services to the protestors. However, an interpreter from Gallaudet's interpreting services, Robert Loeffler, came and revealed why there were no interpreters being provided and pointed the finger at the administration. It is rumored that there have been firings within GIS for the revelation, but I do not know if this is true or not.

On October 13th, known as "Black Friday" among the protestors and everybody who has been involved in one way or another, 135 protestors were arrested for refusing to reopen the campus. During this incident which happened at nighttime, it is said that extremely bright lights were used, blinding the protestors from being able to see what the interpreters were saying. By the 14th, the group of protestors swelled up to one thousand and protested at the front gate. Also, several protestors went on a hunger strike. On October 16th, the faculty held a meeting, out of 221 eligible voting faculty members, 178 members were present, representing 76% of the voting faculty. They voted that the faculty demands JKF to resign or to be removed for the greater good of Gallaudet University. The results were 137 Ayes, 24 Nayes, and 6 Abstain.

Later, JKF called the protestors anarchists and terrorists, despite the fact that the protestors have been overall quite peaceful. On October 21st, 4,000 people marched to the Capitol to hold a rally and watch many inspirational speeches. On October 25th, many protestors woke up to something very alarming, DPS were forcefully opening the gate with a bulldozer! In addition some students woke up to the feeling of their tent being trashed around, one student opened the tent and discovered that the DPS was throwing objects at the tent, which included 3-5 inch diameter metal pipes. Several protestors were injured and when the ambulance arrived, they asked the DPS if anybody was injured, they said no, but luckily Dr. Kathleen Wood, an Associate Professor at GU, was present and led them to the injured students.

On October 27th, protestors gathered up at front gate to listen to speeches, and then walked, while holding hands, to the President's house, where more speeches, and chanting were held. On October 28th, a meeting was held where the protestors discussed the fact that the BoT were meeting up elsewhere to discuss the protest and vote on wether JKF's role as president should be terminated. The protestors talked about what the plan B would be if the BoT decided to not remove JKF's position as Gallaudet's next President.

On October 29th, the Board of Trustees announced: "we have voted to terminate Dr. Fernandes' appointment as President-Designate (currently effective) and President (effective beginning January 1, 2007) at Gallaudet University."

It has been a long journey to this day. Needless to say, much celebrating was done. Tent City finally went down. Campus was officially open again. But does this mean everything is over and that there is nothing left to fight for? No, there are still things that must change. I strongly feel that Gallaudet needs to make ASL the mandatory language. Issues such as audism among other types of 'ism' have to be faced and resolved at Gallaudet. Every person who works or attends Gallaudet needs to be fluent in ASL. I will get into the reasons why i feel ASL should be the mandatory language at Gallaudet in another article later on. There are many changes to be made and I hope this is the first step toward a better Gallaudet.

I have to thank you, everyone who has been involved in this protest. It is because of you that I finally feel like I am a part of the Deaf community, and want to continue to be a part and learn as much as I can about the Deaf Culture. You make me feel incredibly proud. It is true that the protest did unite many d/Deaf individuals, as I am one of them. I cannot thank you enough.

UNITY FOR GALLAUDET!