More on this issue. Its getting pretty serious over there.
Copyright 2006 The Chronicle of Higher Education
All Rights Reserved
The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 27, 2006 Friday
STUDENTS; Pg. 1 Vol. 53 No. 10
2252 words
Campus Rift Continues to Widen at GallaudetBURTON BOLLAG and ELIZABETH F. FARRELL
Washington
The arrests this month of 133 protesters who had blocked the main entrance to Gallaudet University allowed classes to resume but did not end the crisis at the nation’s only university for the deaf. In fact, students involved in the protests said the arrests and the decision of the university’s president, I. King Jordan, to postpone homecoming festivities had rallied even more supporters to their cause.
“The arrests did not only inflame the community,” said Ryan K. Commerson, a master’s-degree student in cultural studies who is one of the protest leaders. They have "also instilled a deeper resolve to push on."
Faculty members, who met three days after the arrests, overwhelmingly sided with the protesting students: 138 of the 168 who met voted for a resolution demanding that the president-designate, Jane K. Fernandes, resign or be fired. The evening after the vote, about 40 faculty members conducted an impromptu protest of their own, marching from the student academic center to Mr. Jordan’s house on the campus.
Opponents say Ms. Fernandes, who is scheduled to become president in January, is not a strong enough advocate for deaf people and makes decisions without adequately consulting others at the 142-year-old institution.
The dispute has also cut a rift into the wider community of deaf Americans, pitting Gallaudet’s administrators and most of its trustees against many faculty members, students, and alumni, who appear to have the sympathy, if not the outright support, of deaf groups off the campus.
In the faculty members’ march on Mr. Jordan’s house, professors carried candles they had hastily bought at a dollar store a few hours earlier, along with homemade signs that read “Jane Resign Now.” Faculty members who attended the march said Mr. Jordan was surprised and disappointed to see them on his doorstep.
“At first he was at a loss for words and kept shaking his head,” said Diane Morton, a professor in the counseling department. "He then admitted he was surprised by the number of faculty who voted against Ms. Fernandes."
Ms. Morton said the president had agreed that night to meet with a smaller group of faculty members, but that he had not yet done so. Through a university spokeswoman, Mr. Jordan declined to comment.
Student protesters also remained busy late last week. In addition to holding rallies twice a day, they made plans to march on Capitol Hill and said they expected to attract at least 1,000 protesters, including students, alumni, faculty members, and other supporters.
Gallaudet received about $108-million in federal support in the 2006 fiscal year, and three members of Congress serve as trustees: Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Reps. Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, and Lynn C. Woolsey, Democrat of California.
The timing of the march, which coincided with the previously scheduled homecoming weekend, made it more likely that alumni would be actively involved. Students from other universities with programs for deaf students, including the University of Maryland at College Park and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, part of the Rochester Institute of Technology, were also expected to march with them.
Gallaudet students vowed to find a way to continue with their planned homecoming festivities, despite Mr. Jordan’s decision to postpone those events, including the football game. Mercy Coogan, a spokeswoman for Gallaudet, said university officials had no plans to prevent students from celebrating the occasion with traditional barbecues and parties, and had canceled only university-sponsored events that would have drawn big crowds.
“We will attempt to cooperate with individuals who are already on campus and who have catering events they have already paid for,” she said. "We don’t want confrontation, we want safety."
By the middle of last week, the resolve of the students and faculty members seemed to have influenced the positions of some of the trustees, who told The Washington Post that they were divided on the issue of Ms. Fernandes’s appointment. Through Ms. Coogan, Ms. Fernandes later confirmed that some trustees had asked her to step down as president-designate.
But Ms. Coogan said that despite the open dissent, Ms. Fernandes remained resolute.
“She certainly felt blindsided that they went public with private communications,” the spokeswoman said. "But she came back this morning and said she is going to remain as president-designate and plans to assume the office in January."
The situation at Gallaudet intensified after Mr. Jordan called in the police to deal with protesters. Many students, faculty members, and alumni said the decision felt like a betrayal to them. Consequently, a majority of faculty members voted no confidence in Mr. Jordan, a stunning reversal for a leader who, until the protests, had been widely admired.
Student protest leaders vowed to boycott classes in support of their demands that the search for a new president be reopened. While classes continued as scheduled, faculty members said they noted a greater number of students absent than usual, according to Ms. Coogan.
Early last week, protesters continued to block the main gate, but a gate on the northeastern side of the campus was open, and administrators said it would serve temporarily as the main entrance. To safely shepherd people and cars through that gate, the university hired a private security firm, Ms. Coogan said.
While the protesters refrained from bothering anyone at the open entrance, that may change if the administration continues to ignore their demands, said Earl Blackburn Mikell, a junior majoring in business administration.
“It’s likely to happen when the administration makes another bad move,” he said, using instant messaging. "The students are intent on making it clear to the administration that we control the university, not them."
But Mr. Jordan said in a written statement that he would not give in to a “mob” that wanted to impose its will.
“Let me be clear,” he wrote. "Dr. Fernandes will not resign."
Brenda Jo Brueggemann, chair of the Board of Trustees, told The Chronicle in an e-mail message last Thursday morning that even after learning that some of her fellow board members had changed their minds about their choice as the next president, she still supported Ms. Fernandes.
“As I have stated before, Dr. Fernandes needs to be given a chance,” said Ms. Brueggemann. “She was appointed to the position of president of Gallaudet University, and she has not yet taken the reins nor been given a chance to prove herself. Dr. Fernandes was our most qualified candidate for this position.”
‘Saddest’ Night
Student protesters had occupied the main classroom building since October 5, but the situation escalated drastically six days later, when students, led by members of the football team, sealed off all of the university’s entrances before dawn.
The arrests started around 9 p.m. on October 13, under the glare of police floodlights. Sign-language interpreters were provided by the university. Protesters, told that they were under arrest, went limp as they were carried into police vans. In some cases, other protesters took their place in the line of people blocking the entrance road.
Those arrested were taken to a police facility and given the choice of paying a $50 fine or receiving a citation, which requires a court appearance. No arrest-related injuries were reported.
Mr. Jordan, who will finish 18 years as Gallaudet’s president at the end of the year, had requested police intervention to reopen the campus after failing to persuade students to end their blockade. “Last night was one of the saddest of my life,” he said in a written statement the day after the police intervention.
“I want to be clear that we did not choose to arrest the students,” he wrote. "They chose to be arrested. But the result was the same."
Mr. Jordan, who was swept into office in 1988, has been a popular leader. In fact, his appointment as president was the result of a campus movement 19 years ago called Deaf President Now, which involved a march on Capitol Hill similar to the one current students have planned in opposition to his successor. But Mr. Jordan’s past popularity appears to be falling victim to the current crisis.
Many alumni and faculty members who had spent time with the protesting students were upset by his decision to call in the police to a place that has become for many the center of deaf culture in America. Faculty members were “horrified and profoundly sad,” said Carol J. Erting, chair of Gallaudet’s education department.
“I don’t think I can describe how profoundly upsetting it was to everyone I’ve talked to,” she said.
Bobbie Beth Scoggins, president of the National Association of the Deaf, said in a statement that “less drastic options” should have been explored first. "These arrests should never have happened."
But Mr. Jordan said in a separate written statement, "The administration negotiated with the leaders of the protests in good faith and around the clock. There was a complete lack of good faith on the part of the protesters."
In a move designed to counter charges of insensitivity, Gallaudet’s administration announced hours before the arrests that it had retained Eric H. Holder Jr., a former U.S. deputy attorney general who is now a lawyer in a private practice, to lead an investigation into allegations that campus security guards had used excessive force during the student occupation of the main classroom building several days before the start of the campus takeover.
Underlying Issues
Protests against the choice of Ms. Fernandes, who has been provost at Gallaudet, began last May almost immediately after the trustees named her the next president of the university. Students demonstrated and the faculty passed a vote of no confidence in her. Ms. Fernandes is deaf but was raised in an “oral” environment, learning sign language only at the age of 23.
Opponents say that the search process for a new president was flawed, and that faculty and student views were not adequately taken into account. Among other things, opponents question why, despite the increasingly multiracial character of the campus, all three finalists were white.
In a commentary published in The Washington Post the day after the arrests, Ms. Fernandes said she saw the opposition to her mainly as a sign of turmoil among deaf people over how to deal with challenges to their traditions and culture. Medical advances like cochlear implants are restoring a degree of hearing undreamed of a decade or two ago, raising doubts about the future of American Sign Language, she said.
In addition, she wrote, the presidential search brought to the fore issues of racism, and of discrimination by hearing people, known as "audism."
Those issues have long been just under the surface, she wrote. When it came time to choose a new president for Gallaudet, "they erupted like a volcano. I happened to be the person standing next to that volcano."
The crisis was felt far beyond the gates of the campus, as deaf people looked on with deep concern. Alumni have traveled to Washington to join the protests, and tent encampments were erected elsewhere – reportedly on more than 50 sites in 38 states – in solidarity with protesting students at Gallaudet.
Glenn B. Anderson, a professor of rehabilitation counseling at the University of Arkansas who was chair of Gallaudet’s Board of Trustees until 2005, said all concerned parties would have to give a little if a solution were to be found. The National Association of the Deaf has offered to mediate.
“Trust and leadership … are tragically absent” at Gallaudet, the association’s president, Ms. Scoggins, said in her statement. She warned that "further escalation can very well lead to additional arrests … and even mass exodus of students withdrawing from the university."
Mr. Anderson said recruitment of new students and financial appropriations from Congress, Gallaudet’s main source of support, could suffer.
Long-Term Effects
While many faculty members, students, and alumni focused on their immediate goal of forcing the resignation of Ms. Fernandes, a smaller group of students and professors said they worried about the emotional toll the controversy was taking on the community.
“Something has got to give,” said Mark S. Weinberg, a professor of foreign languages and chair of the university faculty. "If things continue the way they’re going now, we’re going to implode."
Even if the controversy were to be resolved in favor of one side, both have already sacrificed a lot, said Drew Robarge, a senior who had previously served in Gallaudet’s student government. Although he does not support Ms. Fernandes’s appointment, he stopped participating in the protests after the protesters blocked access to academic buildings.
“This is a struggle where both sides cannot afford to lose,” he said in an e-mail message.
If the administration gives up, Mr. Robarge said, they risk more challenges to their authority in the future and might find themselves at the whim of the masses. On the other hand, students who have risked their time and education to take a stand against Ms. Fernandes are likely to become further disillusioned with the institution if their demands are not met, he said.
“Perhaps it is the fallout that we should be concerned with as well as the current situation,” said Mr. Robarge. “When this conflict is resolved, it is not going to be a day of joy for either the administration or the protesters, and that, in reality, is sad.”
October 25, 2006