Signs of Change At Gallaudet

Discussion Policy

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

It's impossible to listen to the various sides in this painful conflict and not accept the idea that everyone may be right -- that no one explanation is sufficient. Gallaudet's campus, a lovely pocket of green tucked into a gritty Northeast neighborhood, is, like any liberal-arts campus, a cauldron of political passion, debate and infighting.

But it's also impossible not to tap into a deep undercurrent of uncertainty about the future of deaf culture and institutions.

Which should come as no surprise. The deaf rights movement symbolized by Jordan's ascent and tenure is establishing itself. Visual learning is understood and respected as never before, and deaf and hard-of-hearing people are earning higher degrees in unprecedented numbers. Many deaf people reject any notion of disability; "we're humans who are visually oriented," Prof. Martina J. Bienvenu told me.

Yet at this moment of success, technology and science are raising questions about the nature of deafness in the coming generation.

"Hearing aids are better than ever. Implants are better than ever," Fernandes said. "Progress in genetics is leading to the idea that you could choose not to have a deaf child. All that puts huge pressures on these deaf students."

Fernandes says that Gallaudet's response must be to welcome all kinds of deaf and hard-of-hearing people -- those with implants and those without, poor and foreign students and those from diverse racial backgrounds who may come later to the new technologies -- and to offer academic excellence to lure students who will have more options than ever before. But none of that will come easily, which is why Jordan says the protests are "really about what it means to be a deaf person in the 21st century."

The retiring president welcomes the protests as evidence of new assertiveness among the deaf. "If you oversee a university and you have to choose between apathy and empowered students, obviously you'd choose empowered students," he said. And then added, with a laugh: "Until you disagree with them."

fredhiatt@washpost.com

< 2