Source of Gallaudet Turmoil Is Up for Debate

The last time the Gallaudet board picked a president, in 1988, a revolution of sorts ensued.

Students were so angry that trustees had chosen yet another president who could hear -- the school had never had a deaf leader -- that they took to the streets demanding a "Deaf President Now."

They not only got what they wanted in Jordan, who has led the university since, but started a movement that helped lead to the passage of the sweeping Americans With Disabilities Act.

Now, a generation later, deaf people have a right to equal access and an expectation that the president of Gallaudet will mirror Jordan's reach.

But "Deaf President Now" was easy for outsiders to understand: three words, obvious concept.

Fernandes sought to define the current protests when they broke out, immediately after her selection in May, with three more words. She said she was "not deaf enough" for her opponents because she grew up speaking and didn't learn ASL until she was an adult.

A long-standing debate continues over whether deaf children should learn to speak or sign, accelerated by the increasing number of deaf children getting implants, going to mainstream public schools and immersing themselves in the hearing world. Fernandes said friends have described the idea that the core community of deaf people using sign language will dwindle away as "genocide."

There's no doubt that some students, faculty and alumni want the president to be more fluent in ASL than is Fernandes, who is not a native signer, and a proponent of preserving the school as a place apart, where traditions and everyday life are based around sign language. After all, Gallaudet is arguably the center of deaf culture worldwide.

But most say that's not why they're protesting. Some compare Fernandes's explanation to playing a race card -- subverting the real issues with a volatile and provocative argument. Gallaudet, and the deaf community, have long had all different types of hearing and communication, a diverse mix of people signing, speaking or both.

By defining the protests as she did, Fernandes "effectively pressed the red button and nuked the credibility and reputation of the very constituents she was selected to lead," senior Ben Moore wrote in a blog. "She conveniently left out that the mostly hearing faculty have repeatedly expressed no confidence in her in the past and a majority of the student body graduated from mainstream high schools," rather than residential schools for the deaf. For years, Jordan had been revered on campus -- and he's not a native signer, either.

Even before she was named president, Fernandes was a controversial figure at Gallaudet.

Teachers at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, which includes the elementary and secondary schools on campus, were angry that she eliminated tenure when she helped run the center in the late 1990s.