Deaf Advocate Blasts Arrests

A Gallaudet student relays deaf studies Professor Dirksen Bauman's signs as he addresses reporters yesterday. (Photos By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

The letter cited the arrests as evidence of a "growing chasm between the university administration and the students, faculty, staff and alumni" and faulted university leaders for a lack of "trust and leadership."

Scoggins reiterated that message. "I see very little support for the administration," she said, surveying the crowd behind her. "I see very little."

Administrators had the protesters arrested Friday to end the campus shutdown. Students had been warned repeatedly that they could be arrested if they did not stop blocking the school's entrance. Nearly 1,000 protesters turned out Saturday, galvanized by the arrests.

Protests against Fernandes began with the announcement in May that she would replace Jordan as president in January. Jordan, who became the first deaf president of Gallaudet in 1988, has long been a hero in the deaf community. But his decision to arrest protesters Friday made him a traitor in the minds of some.

"We no longer recognize King Jordan as university president," LaToya Plummer, a Gallaudet junior who was among those arrested, said at a news conference yesterday afternoon. A student perched on the campus wall relayed her signs to the protesters beyond.

"We're looking at the last straw here," said Lois Bragg, vice chair of the faculty senate. "The problems are intense. They have been deep for a long time. The board of trustees is asleep."

Gallaudet faculty planned to meet today to consider several resolutions, Bragg said, including a call for Fernandes to resign and possible confidence votes in the board and Jordan.

The protesters, which include large numbers of alumni and university employees as well as students, say they oppose the incoming president's leadership style and the process that led to her appointment. Fernandes has said she believes the dispute is about identity politics within the deaf community, which is struggling to synthesize technology-driven shifts in what it means to be deaf.

Fernandes angered protesters with a letter to The Washington Post, published Saturday, that suggested she was under attack by deaf-culture preservationists who view her as a threat. Fernandes learned to sign at 23 and embraces, in her words, "many ways of being deaf."

Protesters yesterday accused Fernandes of playing "the deaf card" and said the incoming president was trying to create a false impression that students deem her, in the words of Professor Dirksen Bauman, "not deaf enough."