Gallaudet Faculty Opposes Incoming College President

No-Confidence Votes Against Jordan, Trustees

Gallaudet University students react to the announcement of votes by faculty members. (By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post)

The faculty at Gallaudet University gave overwhelming endorsement last night to a proposal calling for Jane K. Fernandes to resign or be removed from her position as incoming president of one of the world's premier colleges for the deaf.

Meeting in Gallaudet's Andrew J. Foster Auditorium surrounded by signs of the protest that has drawn worldwide attention, the teachers adopted the nonbinding resolution by a vote of 138 to 24. Six abstained.

Fernandes, whose title is president designate, was selected by the board of trustees in May and has been the focus of bitter opposition at the 142-year-old school ever since. She is scheduled to take office Jan. 1.

The vote gave new support to the protest over Fernandes and came three days after 133 demonstrators were arrested in one of the key moments of the student-led shutdown that paralyzed the Northeast Washington campus last week.

"Can we make it any more clear?" Jan Hafer, a professor on sabbatical from the school's education department, said after the meeting. "Dr. Fernandes must resign. She does not have the support of the university. It's clear. It's overwhelming."

Fernandes, who had been the school's provost, was appointed to take over from outgoing President I. King Jordan. But the appointment has fueled months of bitter feuding between the school administration and students who have staged raucous demonstrations.

Even as classes resumed yesterday after last week's shutdown, dissension continued to roil the renowned school.

The faculty meeting was said to be one of the largest ever at the school. Of the 221 voting members of the faculty, 168 attended the often emotional meeting.

Several other resolutions were also passed. One, to study the inclusion of students, faculty and alumni on the board of trustees, passed unanimously, according to those in attendance. Another, requesting that there be no reprisals against protesters, passed 133 to 15. A call for the presidential search process to be reopened passed 131 to 23, with two abstentions. And another, asking the board to convene an emergency meeting including students, faculty and others to determine how to manage the school during the interim as the presidential search process is reopened, was also approved 131 to 23, with two abstentions.

The faculty also narrowly passed a vote of no confidence in Jordan and resoundingly asserted a lack of confidence in the board of trustees.

Calling it a sad day for him and the school, Jordan in a statement last night said that Fernandes "will not resign."

He called her an agent of change who is eminently qualified but has alienated some on campus by introducing high academic standards that he called "unpopular but necessary."