A Lonely Voice for Inclusion in a Redoubt of the Radical Deaf

"Being deaf was only part of my life. I don't believe I need to be fixed," Jane K. Fernandes says. (By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post)

Jane Fernandes, who has been deaf all her life, grew up in a hearing world. She didn't learn sign language until she was 23. Now, as she prepares to assume perhaps the most important job in deaf America, some students at Gallaudet University deride her signing ability as "third-grade level."

As she signs those words -- on a fluid, adult level, according to university staffers -- Fernandes's face stretches with pain and her fingers flash with anger. "I am not a native signer," she says, "but I am a fluent signer. The protesters want to make this about me. But this is larger than me. I never thought I would live to see the day when deaf people go after deaf people in this way."

Outside the elegant president's office in a majestic Victorian building, students continue to control the school's main gate. Whatever goodwill Fernandes had built up over her 11 years on the Northeast Washington campus, where she serves as provost, seems to have dissipated. But despite growing calls for her resignation, Fernandes -- who lives near Annapolis with her husband and two teenagers, all of whom are hearing -- says she's not going anywhere.

"The protesters have insulted, inflamed, attacked -- physically, too," she tells me. "It's gotten quite ugly. And logically or administratively, the university cannot allow students to run Gallaudet. But I understand the students' passion. This place is a symbol of their future. It's like the role that historically black colleges play, except that there are so many of them. There is one Gallaudet."

Being the nation's leading institution of higher education for the deaf makes Gallaudet perhaps the most important battleground in the rapidly evolving definition of deaf culture: Will Gallaudet be a place apart, a refuge for those who see deafness as a separate, distinct way of life, or will the campus embrace deaf people who want to use new technologies to be part of the hearing world as well?

Fernandes believes the emotional scene on campus stems mainly from the sense that with more and more deaf people using cochlear implants and hearing aids, the very idea of deaf culture is threatened.

"I can only believe the students and faculty who are doing this are deeply in pain," Fernandes says. "This is a huge movement for deaf people to be clearly seen. But I am trying very hard to see what the real issues are. If you talk to several different protesters, you get several different sets of issues. It looks like this is a protest against someone -- not for a cause. Do people just want to rally against me? You have to be for something."

Homecoming weekend has been canceled. Last night, amid reports that some college trustees are wavering in their support of the incoming president, Fernandes gave the first indication of reconsidering her impossible situation. But on a sparkling fall afternoon, a professor has taken her class out on the university's front lawn; 16 students watch their teacher sign to them. This is Fernandes's vision of Gallaudet, a place where it is evident that deaf people are at home and at ease.

Thirty yards away, 48 tents have been pitched in protest. Students share Burger King fare and plan their next rally. They have pledged to stay until Fernandes goes. They want a school led by someone who believes in deaf culture as a world unto its own.

Fernandes says she shares that vision but believes Gallaudet must be a home to all deaf people, including people like her, who hardly knew any deaf people until she was a young adult.

"I was born deaf; I have a deaf mother and a deaf brother," she says. "But because my family was more into speaking than signing, being deaf was only part of my life. I don't believe I need to be fixed. I'm proud of being a deaf woman and still being able to mesh in with hearing people. But there are others -- people who grew up with signing and attended schools of the deaf -- who want to have a stronger boundary, a culture among themselves. I am not part of that core."

Fernandes tells of a friend on the faculty who has now broken with her -- "a former friend, maybe" -- who refers to the advent of cochlear implants, electronic devices that give the deaf a sense of sound, as a "genocide." "There's this sense of less space on Earth for deaf people," Fernandes says. But she, and the school's trustees in selecting her, have refused to see Gallaudet as a refuge for those who are pure in their deafness. "Gallaudet must model what it means to be an inclusive deaf university."

In an increasingly polarized society, in a country that embraces identity politics and then wonders whatever happened to the idea of the commonwealth, Fernandes and Gallaudet have taken a stand for moderation and inclusion. That they are doing so on a radicalized campus has led to the sad spectacle of students being arrested and classes being canceled.

Fernandes says she will not resign because that would change nothing. "I became a better person when I learned to sign," she says. "Sign language is how we will maintain our culture. But my language is both American Sign Language and English. The protesters want a president who cannot vocalize, but when my mother comes to visit, I will just speak to her in English.

"Well, when the students read what I've just said, they're going to just go out of their heads. But even though I am 50 and it's hard at my age, I'm doing a lot of work on myself to be sure I'm always working on the core of Gallaudet, and that is sign language and deaf culture. The students need to get past this being about me so we can talk together. They'll see that we agree far more than we disagree."

Only one entrance to Gallaudet is open now, and the guards communicate by speaking, not signing. Fernandes wants to change that; she wants every guard, cafeteria worker and teacher to be fluent in signing. But she can do that only if she can get the school up and running again. "Here I am a target, and I'm not even running the university yet," she says. "I wish the protesters could give me a chance, because we could do amazing things together. But I have to say this: I will be president."