Last week during a hot cloudy hour when we couldn’t swim in the pool (I had a housesitting gig at a friend’s house with a pool), Muck (or Michelle McAuliffe, artist extraordinarie) and I were driving around College Park, talking about everything from IKEA lightbulbs to hearing boys. “One of the perils of dating hearing boys,” I told her, “is having to be patient and smile while we teach them about what it’s like being Deaf and clearing up all the misconceptions they have about us. Like they think hearing aids restore hearing perfectly and that we can then hear Bob Marley just like them.” (Well I said something like that, anyway.)

“That’s exactly the point of my work, ‘First Crush’ ” Muck replied. Muck created this nine-minute-and-thirteen-second video in which she shows different people talking about their first crush. While the subject matter is interesting, how Muck subtitled the video is actually the point of the work. Muck did it on all on her own, meaning she created subtitles from what she thought she lipread and left it blank when she couldn’t understand. Exactly how a Deaf girl who wears hearing aids sometimes (with funky neon green molds) perceives and construes what people say when they speak English and don’t sign. When people think that because you’re wearing a hearing aid, you won’t have any trouble understanding them. And we all know that’s bullshit, which Muck loves to say and shows in her work.

Like Muck says in her thesis about ‘First Crush’, it’s “another example of this type of miscommunication. In this piece I interviewed friends and strangers, (asking them) to tell me about their first crush.” She wants her audience to “viscerally experience a layer of bullshit as they try to understand the content of this video.”

Luckily, you’ll have the chance to experience the bullshit for yourself. Muck’s work was selected for exhibition at Academy 2008, which showcases MFA and BFA work. It opens tomorrow (July 11) at 1341 H Street Northeast and Muck’ll be there for the opening. The show runs from July 11 to July 26. You can find more information at www.connercontemporary.com (You can get a peek of Muck’s work at slide 13).

Based on my experience, twenty-nine year old Deaf women should have twelve tattoos, read Paul Auster, and have a penchant for watching Buffy shows. Based on my experience, Deaf women my age should be spending their days and nights reading the latest (and the oldest) articles about what a sentence means in ASL. Based on my experience, Deaf women should consider themselves culturally Deaf but still cherish their participation in the hearing community because they just love musicals too much.

Obviously, I do not mean what I said in the first paragraph, I’m trying to show that the “based on my experience” logic does not work. I’ve had enough training - and experience, dare I say - to see that it does not. To take one person’s experience and say that it is representative of people who have similar characteristics does not work because there is always more difference than similarity.

This blog entry is a reaction to the latest article on cochlear implants in the health section of the New York Times. The article is written from the perspective of Josh Swiller, known for his recent novel on his Peace Corps experience in Zambia. It is an interesting article that explains how the cochlear implant works for Josh. He can now talk on the phone when he couldn’t before. Good for him.

But one comment struck me as a linguist-in-training (and as a twenty-nine year old Deaf woman who likes Paul Auster and Buffy), “Mr. Swiller says based on his experience, ‘a small child with severe hearing loss should be implanted as soon as possible. Sign language can be learned down the road, but not English. It’s a no-brainer to me if you want the child to succeed in a hearing world.’ ” This statement is heavy with false claims.

One of the claims is this: Because a cochlear implant ensures that a child will successfully hear, then it follows that the child will successfully acquire spoken English. What’s wrong with this claim? Cochlear implants do not have a high success rate (Johnson 2006). Cochlear implants are not a guaranteed method for access to and subsequent acquisition of spoken language. Robert E. Johnson says this so much better than I can. So if you can read the article, please do.

The other claim is that ASL can be learned down the road but that English cannot. Behind this kind of thinking is the assumption that English is a language that cannot be acquired later in life. It also then follows that it is assumed that ASL is not a language, but rather some kind of communication system that someone can be trained in later, like writing. The last fifty years has seen a crazy growth of sign language linguists demonstrating otherwise. ASL is a language and it is acquired - not learned - in exactly the same way that English is. Linguists do agree with Swiller that language must be acquired by a certain age. But what that first language is does not seem to matter. If a child has early access to any one language, then that child will be able to acquire other languages in life. That means that a Deaf child can acquire ASL first and then acquire English later in life.

Yet another claim, and the last I’ll bring up here, is that success in a hearing world requires that one use (hear and speak) spoken English fluently. Deaf people all over the world succeed in life using signed languages as their primary language. Or, to put in terms used in the article, based on my experience, I’m doing just fine, thank you.)

A “based on my experience” generalization (meaning that what happened to me should be true for others) causes considerable harm when published in a reputable newspaper. It creates an appearance of credibility and brings readers to perceive Josh Swiller as a spokesperson for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. It perpetuates the myths of ASL not being a language, of cochlear implants being 100% successful, of cochlear implants aiding the acquisition of a spoken language. All of these myths are harmful to the Deaf community which is comprised of different individuals who have successfully (or unsuccessfully) reached certain stages in language development, career development, et cetera, in different ways. While a cochlear implant may work for one individual, it will not work for another - or, more probably for most. We cannot endorse cochlear implants as a cure-all for deafness, because it isn’t.

Well, that’s based on something beyond just my personal experience.

Note: To be fair to Josh Swiller, let’s not forget how the media can distort the original message of interviewees. In this blog, I am not attacking Josh Swiller. On the contrary, I respect and support his decision in getting a cochlear implant. Instead I am addressing the claims that were implicit in the article.

My good friend, Rachel Knopf, gave me “the unheard: a memoir of deafness and africa” (words in the title uncapitalized in respect to how it was printed on the cover of the book) by Josh Swiller for a birthday present a few weeks ago. When I pulled the book out of the gift bag, I knew immediately what it was. The book was about a man, born deaf but raised orally, who went to Africa (Zambia) with the Peace Corps in the 1990’s. Rachel, who had visited me in Kenya when I was there for my Peace Corps service from 2002 to 2004, thought I would find it interesting. After all, we were both deaf and we both went to Africa as Peace Corps Volunteers! I had picked up the book precisely for this reason but didn’t buy it.

I don’t know why I resisted it at first. I had read Josh’s blogs and liked his style of writing. But to read his book… I held it off for a while, saying it’d be my treat for winter break, reading a non-school-related-book at last! But I think there was something else holding me back. The book’s gonna be about a guy who couldn’t accept he was deaf and through the Africans who are beset by poverty, disease, and everything-bad-you-can-ever-imagine found he was really lucky anyway to have received a good American education and blah blah blah. I wasn’t in the mood for a predictable tale where the complaining schmuck realizes how lucky he really is.

But, yesterday, Josh came to Gallaudet to give a presentation and meet all the bigwigs at Gallaudet. Watching him share stories with the audience, I found myself nodding spiritedly. I know it was quite spirited because Josh noticed me in the audience. “Were you in the Peace Corps?” “Yes,” I replied, feeling my face turn red. “Where?” he asks good-naturedly. “Kenya” I reply meekly. He nods and continues sharing his tales and includes me every now and then. “Julie, was this the same for you?” I’d nod and smile.

It wasn’t completely true. Josh was telling stories about a violent village where there was mob justice (they dragged a man for miles on Christmas day), where a third of the children under five died everyday during the rain season, where he lived in a mud hut with no running water or electricity. That wasn’t my Peace Corps experience. I lived on a school compound in a house with electricity and running water (although the electricity wasn’t very consistent and the water didn’t really run, it dripped), I didn’t see children dying (I only saw how deaf children were cruelly treated), I didn’t see the locals dragging bodies (I heard stories though about putting car tires on people and setting them on fire for theft).

But there was an element of familiarity in Josh’s words. That’s why I was such a spirited nodder. So last night, I went home and started to read his book. “Just one chapter!” I told myself, “Then you have to finish your Optimality Theory reading!” I agreed and turned the first page. I didn’t stop until page 265, the last page. I kept on reading despite the nagging voice in my head. “Read your Optimality Theory! Read your Optimality Theory!” Optimality Schmoptimality! It couldn’t compare to Josh’s book. To his story which pulled me in and forced me to walk aside him. To meet the people he met. To feel the anger, confusion, solitude, happiness, and peace (sometimes all in the course of a day and for me mere minutes) he felt. To see a world he saw.

When I finished the last page, I got that feeling you only get from reading really good books. A feeling of peace. A feeling of sadness at having finished it already. A feeling of understanding. It gave me words, metaphors, stories that helped me understand my own experiences. And showed me much more. “the unheard” wasn’t just about being deaf or being in Africa, it was about being human. That was what the familiarity was. Josh’s Peace Corps experience wasn’t exactly my experience. Josh’s experience with deafness wasn’t exactly my experience. But it didn’t matter. Josh knew how to beautifully capture what it’s like to be alive in this world. And that is why it’s a great book.

(NB: There is little mention of the plot of the book because (subtext) you should go out and get it for yourself!)

“Stammering Children, Laughing Clinton, and Nonsigning Cops”

Isn’t that a lovely title? I bet you clicked on this just to see if there could possibly be a connection between all of them. And yes, there is.

The connection is this: I can’t believe how stupid people can be. Now you may be shaking your head and thinking, “whoa, slow down a bit there, Julie, aren’t you getting a bit too worked up over the stupidity of the world of which we have no control over and never will?” Yes, I know you, O wise one, are right. But still!!!

Okay, so you ask in a placating manner, “tell me, Julie, what’s with the indignation against stupidity? Let’s start with the stammering children.” Okay well… I got this email from a friend who got this email from an acquaintance who got this email from some random travel encounter’s sister. (There’s got to be a word for that… “random travel encounter.” You know when you’re standing before that time schedule in a train stop in some country and you’re trying to decipher the way from here to there and this person standing next to you has the exact same dilemma, so you smile gingerly at one another and then you start talking and marvel at how you’re going to the same place and why not sit in the same train compartment and you have hours and hours of scintillating conversation so you vow, upon departure, to never lose contact and to meet up again should you be in the same place. What’s the word for that?) This person who sent the email wanted to do a thesis on stammering children and/or children who use sign language in Kenya. She felt the need to explore the development of a sign language for Kiswahili (the spoken language in Kenya). First of all, you can’t “and/or” stammering children and children who use sign language. That just gets a stunned gaping look from me. How can you possibly say the two groups are the same? Second of all, “the development of sign language for Kiswahili”? First off, sign languages aren’t based on (or aren’t supposed to be based on) spoken languages. Second off, there’s a perfectly healthy signed language already in use by the deaf people of Kenya and has been for over fifty years. If this person would have already visited Kenya and met a few deaf people, she would know this. But no, she relies on her own good intentions (and not a lot of knowledge) to save the stammering children and/or signing children.

Now to, quite a big transition I know but bear with me, Laughing Clinton. This past Sunday, I retrieved my New York Times Sunday edition from the porch, thanking whoever there’s to thank that it wasn’t stolen once again. I sat down with a cup of steaming coffee and opened the newspaper. On page something or other, there’s this article about Hillary Clinton’s laughter. Pausing for your astonishment. Yes. It’s about her laugh. Apparently she’s too sarcastic for the general public’s good (the woman’s from Chicago after all! We Chicago girls know our sarcasm). Basically, it’s a serious article examining the hows and whys of her laugh. Now, I ask you, would any self-respecting journalist write the same about a male political candidate? I really doubt so. She laughs! You laugh! He laughs! We all laugh! How the heck can that be a valid piece of evidence towards whether she’d be a good President for America or not?

Finally, nonsigning cops. Now that’s not really stupid in itself. Who said that cops in Washington DC, the home to the world’s only liberal arts college for the deaf, should know any functional sign language? But when it becomes stupid is when there’s a bomb threat at Gallaudet and no cop guarding the gates can tell people why they can’t come in or out. Instead the cops are reduced to pointing, very effective communication for pacifying an increasingly growing crowd who’s anxious to know what’s happening and what’s being done about it.

See the thread of stupidity in all this? Yeah… me too.

So on Saturday night, I went out to Madam’s Organ in Adams Morgan with four other girlfriends. One’s Deaf, two are interpreters, and one was in the Peace Corps around the same time as me and learned KSL (Kenyan Sign Language). So we all used ASL, sometimes KSL, while chatting with one another.

The table next to us was filled with some men who kept looking over at our table. One man started copying a few of the signs we produced. They seemed genuinely interested but didn’t initiate anything so we didn’t pay any mind and kept on chatting. Two of the girls (the interpreters) heard the men say “I wish I knew what they were saying.” We all smiled and continued our conversation.

Not long after, a few minutes later perhaps, my interpreter friends look at each other horrified, stop their conversation, and look at the table of the curious men. I asked what was wrong. They told me that they overheard one of the men say “Oh deaf girls, two for one!” And they erupted in laughter.

They did not say anything to the men. I immediately looked over and tried to make eye contact with one of them, praying that something clever would come to mind. Something that would put them in their place. The laughing men never looked back over to us. The moment passed. But the feeling, the indignation, the horror from their comments didn’t.

What upsets me the most is this isn’t the first time nor the last time hearing people make nasty comments about deaf people because they think their comments won’t be overheard. I just don’t get it.

Today I got an email from the sign language linguistics email list that announced a new dinosaur comic about sign language.

Spoiler alert! Look at the comic now if you want to be surprised before reading on. Not that there’s much of a plot…

So first off, I’m not really sure how I feel about dinosaur comics. They’re dead, extinct, gone. Is it fair to make fun of them when they can’t defend themselves? I’m reminded of the caveman ads for Geico.

In all seriosity, this comic shows a new direction in the awareness of sign language and perhaps shows that there’s a standard on the rise. With ASL classes becoming increasingly popular at colleges/universities and Baby ASL spreading with each play date and Fockers movies, the old myths about sign language are thankfully disappearing (albeit slowly). Thoughts like “signs are like pictures”, “sign language has no grammar”, and so on are being challenged by contemporary understanding of ASL and sign languages in general. (Although the dinosaur in the comic does say “many of the signs are really evocative”…)

The dinosaur in the comic states that nouns can be “placed” in space and then adjectives that modify them can be signed in the space the noun was placed. For example, if I signed BOY on the right and GIRL on the left. I could, according to the dinosaur, then sign SILLY on the right to describe the boy and FUNNY on the left to describe the girl.

This gives me pause. Do I actually do that? Hmm, I don’t think so. Do people I know do that? Hmm, I don’t think so. (I have to point immediately after signing the adjective to the particular space I’m referring to.) But I haven’t attended any ASL classes and I don’t know what’s being taught in those. From skimming the lesson books, I know that some of the lessons in ASL classes have become increasingly stylized. For example, instead of signing JEWELRY we are supposed to say NECKLACE, EARRINGS, BRACELETS, ET CETERA. Such “group” terms in English (e.g., furniture, amenities, vegetables, fruit) aren’t supposed to have their own signs in ASL. I don’t know anyone who agrees with that anymore (except perhaps the much older generation).

Could it be that “Standard ASL” is on the rise? With any language standard, silly stylized rules become easily etched in stone. Just take the split infinitive rule in which your fifth-grade teacher told you not to split the English infinitive. For example, you couldn’t say “to boldly go” because “to go” is an infinitive which should not be split (Thank goodness the Star Trek writers didn’t listen to their fifth grade English teachers). This contrived rule came about because Latin did not split its infinitives. Back then, Latin was considered a superior language and was among the first to have its grammar recorded. When English became more common for writing, people attempted to write grammars for English and they used Latin grammar books as their guide. And, actually, Latin couldn’t split the infinitive because the infinitive form was just one word while in English it is two. In any case, when things get written down, and whether they’re right or wrong, they have a pesky habit of sticking around and becoming the authoritative voice later in a classroom.

Is the rule that the dinosaur spouts to his dinosaur friend actually something we use? Or is it a fossilized rule being perpetuated by ASL classes and that students who take those classes are acquiring a more “standardized” version of ASL than what’s actually being used? (And no I’m not forgetting that varieties of ASL depend on different regions, gender, ages, levels of education, types of careers, and so on).

This happens with every language. The more books printed on and classes taught on languages, the more that the formal variety deviates from actual, everyday language use. This dinosaur comic may be a positive sign, proof that ASL is becoming standardized. But it’s also a sign that hearing people are learning a version of ASL that we don’t use.

You may be asking why all the fuss? Well, this topic has been discussed at considerable length for quite awhile now especially with the recent protests at Gallaudet bringing up issues about ASL at Gallaudet. Some people want ASL classes for incoming freshmen, and these classes aren’t the type of classes that warrant numbers (e.g., ASL 1, ASL 2, etc.). But the kind of ASL classes they’re talking about is teaching a more formal register that students can use for homework (e.g., a video essay on Dickens or an ASL summary about the fetal pig dissected in class). One of the things that keeps coming up, “but there’s no ’standard’ ASL!” Hmm, maybe not?

All this from a dinosaur comic!

No, I’m not going on an ill-advised mission for advocating speech therapy. Rather, what my subject heading refers to is the multitude of speeches some of us in the DC area were lucky enough to enjoy (subtext: gagged, tied down, and unwillingly made to watch) last week.

As many of you know, last week was graduation at Gallaudet. What this means is many people get up on stage and spout platitudes, “you shall go out in the real world now and astonish people with your contribution to a field that no one really cares about.” Okay, okay, can you tell I’m not big on rituals and the trite messages people have to partake during such?

I’m not exactly against speeches. But what I’m against is tired old messages. Luckily, Cecily Whitworth (one of my good friends who is also in the department of Linguistics. I’m not biased I swear!) was chosen as the graduate commencement speaker. No tired old message here. She spoke about multilingualism. If you look closely, you can see that there’s a message to be learned here. As one of my professors said, it’s actually a parable. Here is the speech in full:

I spent six weeks last summer in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. I was there doing research at a school for deaf children, but I was staying with my father and stepmother who work for USAID, the United States Agency for International Development. The number of languages that ended up being used every day, by me and the people I was trying to communicate with, was a little overwhelming.

Rwanda has three official languages. The first language of most people is Kinyarwanda. French and English are also official languages. French is spoken more frequently than English, but government documents, newspapers, and the like are usually published in all three.

At the school where I was working, most of the teachers are hearing and most of them are from Italy or Brazil; only a few were from Rwanda and only one part-time teacher was deaf. The students at the school are taught Rwandan sign language (the abbreviation is AKR, for Amaranga y’Ikinyarwanda, “Rwandan Language of Signs” in Kinyarwanda) and they are also taught Kinyarwanda, French, and a little English.

I used whatever language I could to communicate with the teachers. Most of the time, a mix of AKR and French was the most effective- but that meant that none of us, neither me nor the teachers, were using our first language. We ended up relying a lot on drawing pictures, gestures, and, when available, interpreters.

By far the most effective communication, however, was when the one deaf teacher was available. This teacher had traveled widely, met a lot of other deaf people, and was fluent in not only Kinyarwanda and AKR, but also in French, English, and ASL. This meant that he was the only person who could communicate with all of the other people in any given conversation. He spoke and lipread Kinyarwanda with the parents of the children, he spoke and lipread French with the teachers, he interpreted spoken French to spoken Kinyarwanda, he interpreted spoken Kinyarwanda to ASL, he interpreted ASL to spoken French, and of course he interpreted all of these languages into and out of AKR.

It is sad that the hearing teachers at the school in Rwanda could only barely communicate with their deaf students, and it is sad that I grew up in a country where people are only expected to be able to use one language, English. However, it is inspiring and exciting to me that it was a Deaf person who was able to overcome so many language barriers and who was the one really crucial link in so many conversations.

You can never know too many languages. We, at Gallaudet, are lucky in that we are already a step ahead of most American universities At Gallaudet, we see more than one language being used every day. Students here are fluent users of English, fluent users of ASL, and often fluent users of additional languages as well. When we are faced with a language barrier, we adjust and adapt and find a way around it.

I encourage all of you not to let that head start go to waste. Don’t be the hearing teachers who can’t communicate in the language of their students. Don’t be the foreigners who can’t communicate in the language of the country they are in. Be people who can communicate in the right language for the right setting, to make up for the shortcomings of all those other people who don’t know how. Be multilingual and be proud of it.

Indeed…

I’ve been carrying around this thought with me for the past few weeks. It’s a pretty interesting thought. A bit scary though when I peek a look. It’s a bit intense. It’s a bit confusing. This thought, it whispers boldly, “maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all if Gallaudet closed.”

When I first thought it, I blanched with fear and looked quickly over my shoulder. As if maybe people could read my thoughts. It’s a bad one! Really, Julie, how could you even think it?! Gallaudet is the hallowed hall of the Deaf community! It is at the heart of so many Deaf traditions! Home to so many! Through all this rhetoric I kept telling myself in the weak attempt to mask the bold thought, it remained, “maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all if Gallaudet closed.”

No amount of denying it would make it go away. So, I’ve been humoring it and tossing it around a bit, letting it out now and then. Everyone’s hearing about the bad name Gallaudet has out in the world now because of the “violent” protest during which a few “extremists” took the university “hostage”. People are wondering what’ll happen if Gallaudet loses its accreditation. Gallaudet has so much to fix. Is it really up for the job? Some people are talking about transferring to other universities, about finding new jobs, about going somewhere else.

I ventured an attempt at voicing the thought to a friend, someone outspoken during the protest but also someone I knew to be level-headed and open to fair discussion. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all if Gallaudet closed.”

“No!” He stared at me, his mouth open in shock. “Gallaudet’s the heart of the Deaf community. Close? What?”

“Maybe it’s time to start anew. Maybe we should just go somewhere else and move on,” I started to reason with him.

“Oh, so that’s your answer to the problem? Just cut off a damaged part of the body and forget about it?” He retorted.

I shut up and pulled away my thought. It didn’t go away but it retreated for awhile, allowing me to try to think it over. Gallaudet… it’s clearly an important institution for the American (and even the international) Deaf community. It’s the one place where Deaf people can go and be at home. My friend’s right, how dare I be so callous and even dare suggest abandoning it? I’m a bad Deaf person. Or so that’s what I was convinced of until I heard a professor talk in class today… he tells the class, “Gallaudet is built on the assumption that Deaf people cannot function on their own, that they need to depend on hearing people to survive in the mainstream.”

That clinched it for me. There are two parts to Gallaudet. There’s the administration, which assumes that Deaf people are helpless because they got access to language late in life and as a result couldn’t succeed in school (and who’s to say that the American deaf system is qualified to teach deaf kids anyway?) and arrived to an university practically illiterate with little to contribute to society. One could argue that Gallaudet thrives on maintaining this, that the whole system is built to pander to these students. It’s why Gallaudet has English classes that would be a joke at another university. It’s why some of the staff who have been working there for over twenty years can still barely sign. It’s why Gallaudet isn’t turning out the best research it could if it truly supported its departments and faculty.

But there’s another part, the part we heard during the protest, the part made up of people who understand that there are several things wrong with the system and tried to fight for “social justice.” They believe in ASL, in the Deaf community, in all those things. These people, be them students, alumni, staff or faculty, make up the true part of Gallaudet. It seems to me that these people are more mobile than the first part, the administration, which seems to have control of Gallaudet, the physical Gallaudet. They won’t get their heads out of their offices and look at what’s really going on at Gallaudet. What would happen if the true part of Gallaudet picked up and moved elsewhere? They could go somewhere else and start all over again, or they could break up and scatter across the country and start a new page in American Deaf history. Is the American Deaf community ready for that? Could Gallaudet really close without seriously damaging the American Deaf university scene and the larger Deaf community. Are we hurting ourselves more by clinging so tightly on an institution that may not be really appropriate for our current needs?

I don’t really know. I’m still holding onto the thought. I’m still adding more body to it. But now I’m articulating it to you, an admittedly larger audience than I would usually dare, because maybe we should think about the question of what would happen if Gallaudet closed. I’m a graduate student, working to get my master’s and hopefully my PhD. I like my professors. I like my classmates. I like working there. There’s nowhere else I would get the same opportunity. I’d be really sad if Gallaudet closed, which may happen if it doesn’t respond accordingly to current pressures. But it may happen. Shouldn’t we talk about it?

Sunday night, I sat down to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Eastern Market with two of my friends. The waiter had just served my dinner, a vegetarian glass noodles dish, and I was about to dig in when I felt the vibration of my Sidekick. I’d been waiting for it all day, really all month. The Board of Trustees had just met to decide whether or not to continue supporting their appointment of Dr. Fernandes. I didn’t think it could turn out good. Nothing seemed to get through to them. I didn’t have any hope. From the start of the protest, I was deeply disappointed that no one from the Board or the administration tried to listen to the protesters or even showed the slightest sign of interest. There was madness at Gallaudet and no one seemed to care.

Earlier that morning when I woke up, I had intense feelings of sadness and frustration. My life has been completely disrupted for the last month. I haven’t attended classes regularly. I’ve barely worked more than five hours at my job. I’ve been walking the campus helplessly in a daze. I’ve been checking email, blogs, the news obsessively. I didn’t think anything good would come out of all of this and began wondering if there were any point to it all. How many more buildings would the protesters take over? How many more students would be arrested? How many more would get hurt? How many more negative news reports would I have to read? How many more tents would I have to see on my way through the front gate? How many more conversations would start with “So the protest…”? I couldn’t take much more of it.

When I felt my Sidekick go off at the dinner and I read the statement from the Board of Trustees, “Gallaudet’s Board of Trustees votes to terminate Dr. Jane Fernandes appointment as president,” I didn’t have much hope. I kept thinking “Of course, they’re going to stick by their decision. They won’t let a ‘mob of dissenters’ overtake their decision. They won’t give in.” I had to read the email over and over before the word “terminate” finally sunk in. Jane’s gone? They’ve decided to terminate her? With a spurt of energy, I waved over the waiter and asked for a box for my uneaten vegetarian glass noodles. I wanted to go to Gallaudet and celebrate with everybody else.

On the way over in my friends’ car, I forwarded the announcement to anyone and everyone I could think of. Replies poured in instantaneously. One of my friends responded “Ugh.” I replied, “What do you mean?” He told me, “This protest wasn’t about Jane. While I’m glad she’s out, I have a sinking feeling about what’s gonna happen next.” He’s right in a way. This protest unveiled a great many issues that people are going to need to resolve. A better administration. A more appropriate communication policy. More sensitivity towards diversity and international student issues. It’s not going to be easy. People are already tired from the protest and, like Allison Kaftan said in her recent blog, they want their lives back. Are they going to be able to keep the same fire we’ve seen in the protesters the last few weeks? Are they going to be able to get to what really matters?

When I got to Gallaudet toting my box of vegetarian glass noodles, everyone I encountered gave me a big hug and uttered some exclamation, “Wow!”, “We did it!”, “Yes!”, “Pah!”, “Can you believe it?” The spirit was contagious and I started to feel better. Those feelings of sadness and frustration I had earlier in the morning were being diminished and replaced with hope. It may be silly to give in to such irrational and premature feelings. I’ve seen enough to understand that it’s difficult to change the system, and most people are just too indifferent to try. But I like this feeling of hope, I think I’ll hold onto it.

I won’t deny that right now there’s a jumble of opinions, facts, non-facts, as well as shouts of protest, spirit, and venom. It’s hard to keep your head clear and remember the basic points of the protest. Everyone has their own take on the protest and reasons for supporting it. The two unifying goals, though, is for Jane K. Fernandes to resign and re-open the presidential search.

Why do I support those goals? I’ve been thinking about it ever since May 1st, when it was announced that Fernandes was chosen for the next president and students swarmed to close the front gates. It wasn’t until this past Monday when I met with my professors and students from the linguistics department that it all came together.

What convinced me?

I am a graduate student in the linguistics department and interested in the academic world of linguistics, which includes research, conferences, and teaching. I believe in collecting facts and interpreting them, looking for the larger meaning. It isn’t always easy. But such a process requires open dialogue and respecting other people’s input. I believe very strongly in this kind of environment.

That is not happening now.

I can’t tell you about the past six years when Fernandes was provost, about how Fernandes failed or didn’t fail in her leadership, and about any personal experiences with her. I wasn’t there. I don’t have an opinion about that. (Although countless of other people do and have expressed so in their blogs, in their letters, in their conversations with others on campus, in their interviews with the media.) What I do have an opinion about is what I’ve seen for the last few months.

I’ve seen that Fernandes doesn’t come to talk with the Gallaudet community of students, staff and faculty. Although, she did try last spring with her open forums, I saw a patronizing attitude and outright denial of other people’s opinions. I saw that the open dialogue I believe so strongly in isn’t there. The respect that should be accorded to others isn’t there. That’s what convinced me.

Such behavior should never come from the president of a university. Especially Gallaudet, a place that Deaf people turn to for answers. It surprises me that the Board of Trustees did not take the community’s input in consideration when choosing the next president. Perhaps if the lack of support for Fernandes was marginal, such a lack of response from the Board of Trustees could be justified. But that’s not true. The response from the community was overwhelming.

A common criticism of this kind of thinking: the students, the faculty, and the community don’t have the right to contribute to the appointment of an university’s president. My rebuttal to this: Gallaudet isn’t a typical university. It can’t follow typical procedures that other universities do.

Furthermore since such a large part of the Gallaudet community and the Deaf community has expressed a clear distrust of her leadership, I keep wondering about how she can lead with such distrust. One of my linguistics professors told me that he had been here a few years and had yet to feel encouraged by the Gallaudet administration. He constantly struggled with the negative environment. When he saw Ron Stern speak last May, he finally felt inspired and ready to roll up his sleeves to make Gallaudet a better place for learning. That is what a leader is supposed to do.

Fernandes isn’t doing that. One of the protest t-shirts says, “Clueless leadership. No leadership!” That sounds about right to me.

That’s why I’m compelled to join the fight.