4,000 March on the Capitol. 82, 83, and now 89% of faculty vote no confidence. The Board of Trustees gets threatened. And now, yesterday
the University used "heavy construction equipment" to clear away inconvenient protestors. How did it get this far? What's going to happen next? An update...
This year has seen several major attacks on the rights of Deaf people in this country.
Emergency broadcasting? The Performing Arts? And now I fear the rights of protestors at Gallaudet University are being trampled. What's happening at Gallaudet
started out as a protest over how a President was chosen (first History of the Protest in link.) This turned out to be a Pandora's box which ended up with the protest including a whole list of issues such as barrier-free communication access on campus. (see
second history of the protest.)
Five days ago 4,000 people marched on the Capitol in support of this protest. There has to be some kind of ending soon.
We all are experiencing intense pain at the length and breadth of this protest. I cannot get past one thing. The Administration used a bulldozer on their own students. They have no respect for themselves, the institution, the population they serve, or the job they perform. They have broken any oaths they have made to the University and to its community. I cannot repeat it enough:
You do not use a bulldozer on your own people.
You do NOT use a BULLDOZER on YOUR OWN PEOPLE.
YOU DO NOT USE A BULLDOZER ON YOUR OWN PEOPLE.
You use a bulldozer on lumber, wood, inanimate objects. Things you do not respect or care about. We are lucky the damage was minimal.
I understand they had to clear the gate. I spoke with MSSD faculty. I know the students had internships that day. They wanted to get out and go to their gigs, or whatever. They got to the gate when all this was happening. They saw people struggling with the campus police, the DPS. They saw the lack of communication protestors have been talking about. But also: young Deaf people see the world far more black and white than we do. They saw Deaf people getting beaten up by people who can hear, and worse, without interpreters there to try to communicate with any students at the gate. I can only imagine what their reaction was. Can you? They wanted to join the fight. (I felt a moment of pride in MSSD students when I heard that: MSSD kids aren't cowards!) The school administration held them back. They went into the school and channeled their energy into letters of support for the protest and other projects. I am thankful. Our youth should not fight these battles, though I thank the good Goddess they're willing.
I am still working out how I feel about all this. But that horrifies me: what they had to see. Why they had to see it. When I try to justify the Administration's actions in my head in the name of peace, I have this story in my head. And I grieve because one of my dreams is for America to proudly hold up the Deaf community as part of its communities. I am proud my community is so strong: I am grieved that its youth now may see us always in conflict with an uncaring "hearing world."
This is not Israel. This is not a war between two ancient civilizations. But here too the American people have stood up for what they believe in. In Israel Rachel Cory stood for peace and died for it. In America one death led to the beginning of awareness that things still needed to change. Are we going to need to go that far for the right to determine, essentially, our own futures? To have Deaf people's education, at least, free of barriers and oppression?
Why do I offer you these words? They seem depressing. Because I think you are like me. You do not want to see this kind of fight: it's dirty, it's a barroom brawl, and it's getting nasty on both sides. We both want to see a peace. But this is getting down to the bone of principle now. This is getting down to the role and responsibility of a University's President to lead and protect the community. In Loco Parentis, no, but yes, the guidance of people who lead us through a more complicated education to the next stage of adulthood, and a career. Would you use a bulldozer on your child? Even on your neighborhood's children? I wouldn't. Not for the world. Do we need someone who would, as a President of Gallaudet University? And so I use these thoughts to give me fire. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by a strong University: a barrier-free education for everyone including barrier free "protection," and a barrier-free future. Wasn't it old "Bulldozer" Jordan himself who once said "Deaf people can do anything except hear?"
At this point, it looks like the ACLU may be involved, there are still new Tent Cities of support going up at schools for Deaf people across America, and Deaf people everywhere are waiting for the other shoe to drop. But this is getting nasty, and on both sides, as it becomes clear that the Administration is more interested in securing its position than in working out the issues of the protest:
But while Gallaudet officials may not have been able to get their message across to the students that she's the best candidate for the job, they have made sure that at least one constituency is getting their side of the story: Congress.
Gallaudet retained Dickstein Shapiro , a Washington-based law and lobbying firm, to "educate" lawmakers about the situation on campus and lobby on appropriations issues.
And while they make nice with Congress, they get nasty at home.