Leaders Urge Students to Stay Calm
By Susan Kinzie and Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The tense, month-long standoff between Gallaudet University protesters and the school's administration grew heated again yesterday as students occupied a campus building and school officials used a piece of construction equipment to try to clear a blockaded campus entrance.
One student suffered a toe injury when the administration sent a front-end loader to clear demonstrators' camping materials from the school's Brentwood Road NE entrance, one of several that have been blocked in the protest that began Oct. 1 over the appointment of the next president at the school for the deaf.
A few other students suffered minor injuries, school spokeswoman Mercy Coogan said. Last night, protesters met with administrators, including outgoing president I. King Jordan and president-designate Jane K. Fernandes, to try to calm the strained atmosphere.
The protesters want Fernandes to step down, a step she has vowed not to take.
Fernandes, who was the school's provost, was appointed by the board of trustees in May and is set to take over Jan. 1. But the 20 trustees have scheduled a meeting Sunday in response to the demonstrations and amid reports that the board itself is divided on Fernandes.
"Don't blow it," Prof. Jeff Lewis told 500 students at a meeting last night, mindful that a violent or disruptive protest could backfire. "We are this close. We are this close."
The chaotic confrontation at the gate came after the occupation by protesters yesterday morning of the university's College Hall. The building was voluntarily evacuated several hours later.
The day's events further fueled student outrage, with several saying they had been roughly handled at the Brentwood gate, and seemed to demonstrate the administration's determination not to back down in the face of the protest.
"This is a peaceful protest, and the university is starting to attack us," freshman protester Tar Burt said.
"It's not their gate," Coogan said. "It's the university's gate."
The latest skirmish began when students occupied College Hall and chained the doors closed, the administration said in a statement. After students left, school security officials cut the chains and then moved to clear the Brentwood blockade, where students had camped out.
Security officials "used a front loader to remove tents, tarps and other material that were blocking the entrance way," the statement said. "Some of the protesters resisted . . . efforts to open the gate and were injured, though none seriously."
Although the Brentwood Gate was reopened to foot traffic, protesters' vehicles continued to block the entrance, the statement added.
Coogan said the front-end loader was used because it would have taken hours for employees to remove the student camp by hand.
"It wasn't used in any physical way," she said. As for students' allegations that they received no warning, Coogan said, school officials "let the kids know they should get out of the tents a couple days ago."
Coogan said that entrance is important for safety reasons because it is the closest one to the residential high school on campus.
After clearing items from the Brentwood gate, the front-end loader's driver dumped them on campus near the main gate of the university, at 800 Florida Ave. NE. This further incensed protesters, who also have a camp there, and prompted several to climb aboard the machine and argue with the driver.
"I know emotions are running high, and that can lead to negative actions," protest leader Ryan Commerson told students later. "Just make sure you control your anger.''
The trustees' chair, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, wrote in an e-mail last night that at least 15 protesters were outside her office at Ohio State University, where she is a professor, for most of yesterday. She also said there was a bomb threat in the building.
The Gallaudet protests started immediately after Fernandes was named incoming president last spring.
She had been an unpopular provost -- a majority of faculty and students who responded to a survey before the selection said she was "unacceptable" -- and many complained that the selection process was unfair.
Some said a strong black candidate, longtime board of trustees chairman Glenn Anderson, was eliminated early in the process.
The administration and the board have said repeatedly that the search was fair and that Fernandes was the strongest candidate.
As protests continued, more complaints were raised about Fernandes's performance as provost: The school was recently rated "ineffective" in an Office of Management and Budget report, in part because of chronically low graduation rates. There were objections to a perceived clampdown of freedom of expression on campus and what was described as a dismissive attitude from the board.
This month, protesters shut down campus for three days until more than 130 protesters were arrested. In addition, faculty voted to ask Fernandes to resign or be removed and expressed a loss of confidence in the board and Jordan.
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