Gallaudet Protesters Go to Capitol Hill

Gallaudet University graduate students Dia Allen, left, and James Harrison, lock arms during a student-led protest at the university in Washington, Thursday, Oct 12, 2006. (AP Photo/Chris Greenberg, File) (Chris Greenberg - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of protesters from Gallaudet University marched Saturday to Capitol Hill in an attempt to pressure the incoming school president to resign before she takes office in January.

Student protesters were joined by faculty and alumni as they marched from the northeast Washington campus to the steps of Congress for a morning rally. Three members of the university's board of trustees are members of Congress, and federal funds make up a substantial portion of the annual budget for the nation's only liberal arts school for the deaf.

"Our staff and alumni have all come to show their support today," student leader Delia Lozano-Martinez said. "The public recognizes us coming here, marching for a purpose, to tell (Jane) Fernandes to resign."

Protesters have said Fernandes, the school's former provost, is divisive and ineffective as a leader for the university, which is considered a cultural center of the deaf community. The faculty voted this week by a margin of 82 percent, asking Fernandes to resign or be removed.

Fernandes has said she is determined to become the university's president and will not step down. She said protesters have made her the focus of their frustrations over changes in deaf culture. With an increasing number of children getting cochlear implants, learning to speak rather than sign and going to mainstream school, she said Gallaudet must adapt to the changing deaf community.

Fernandes also has said some people do not consider her "deaf enough" to be president _ a notion some students have rejected. Fernandes was born deaf but grew up speaking and did not learn American Sign Language, the preferred method of communication at Gallaudet, until she was 23.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., are all voting members of Gallaudet's board, but they have not spoken publicly about the 11-day protest.

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