Five years ago in early March, news services carried extensive coverage of Gallaudet University students turning away cars as faculty, staff, and other students were arriving for classes. The students had closed all the entrances to the Washington, DC. university. They were in control -- a new feeling to many of the deaf students there.
The night before, the Gallaudet board had announced that Elisabeth Ann Zinser had been chosen to be the seventh president of the federally chartered and funded institution. Like each president before her, Zinser -- the vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro -- was a hearing person. She had no previous involvement with the deaf community, and she did not know how to sign. She had been chosen over the two other finalists, who were both deaf.
Immediately after the announcement, the discouragement of the student body and staff turned into focused anger. Students began making speeches and planning a response. They marched to the hotel where the board members were staying, then to the U.S. Capitol, and finally the mile back to campus -- demanding all the way that the board reconsider its decision. By early Monday morning, the students had hot-wired buses, moved them into campus entrances, and deflated the tires. With the support of the majority of the staff and faculty, the students had closed down the campus to all school activity.
Even at the nation's only liberal arts school for the deaf, most power was in the hands of hearing people. The 21-member board that chose the new president had only four deaf members (all of whom voted against hiring Zinser). And board president Jane Bassett Spilman was not able to communicate in the language of the students, further exacerbating the conflict early in the week.
Many Americans were tuned to the television, watching as 2,000 students demonstrated and signed chants such as "Deaf Power" and "Deaf President Now" -- and witnessing the birth of the Deaf President Now (DPN) movement.
The students and faculty of the Deaf President Now movement issued four demands for returning the campus to normal activity: the resignation of Zinser, the resignation of Spilman, the reorientation of the board to a deaf majority, and the guarantee of no reprisals to anyone involved in the uprising. One week after the students hit the streets, the board relented; the demonstrators claimed victory. I. King Jordan, one of the two deaf candidates for president, was chosen soon afterward.
This fast and furious response to a very specific instance set off, for a short time, a national debate over civil rights for deaf people. Zinser, in her statement of resignation, stated that she withdrew in deference "to this extraordinary social movement of deaf people." And in this instance, deaf people across the country were able to articulate feelings that had been hidden for so long.
Since the Deaf President Now movement in 1988, radical analyses and activities have occasionally resurfaced. Initially, many people expected a deaf president to resolve all the problems, according to MJ Bienvenu, co-director of The Bicultural Center outside Washington, DC. "People thought this would move the community, but it did not," Bienvenu told Sojourners. Struggles over issues of power and control continued, regardless of the presidency.
Charlotte Baker-Shenk, special projects coordinator for the Anabaptist Deaf Ministry of the Mennonite Board of Missions, explained that one significant sign of change is in the attitude with which people define themselves."The use of terms has become increasingly political," Baker-Shenk said. "It used to be that being culturally deaf -- capital-D Deaf -- was looked down upon. Since the Deaf President Now movement, being culturally deaf [indicating a lifestyle of indigenous language, customs, and values] is how many [deaf] people refer to themselves."
For a variety of reasons, numerous distinct perspectives exist within the deaf community. People deaf from birth may have a different concept of "being deaf" than people who have lost their hearing later in life. Baker-Shenk said that "the DPN movement helped bridge these disparate groups. That was one of the miracles of that moment."
Two years ago a group of Gallaudet students organized to continue the struggle in its next logical step: American Sign Language (ASL), the indigenous language of the deaf community, officially recognized by the school. Thus, the ASL Now movement began. Students -- many of whom witnessed firsthand the events of the 1988 uprising -- worked to inform hearing people of the power of language. Because most of the students involved were seniors and because they encountered so many roadblocks, the movement slowly withered.
But the ASL Now movement has proven to be a seed for the expanding bilingual, bicultural movement. The "bi-bi" movement is a philosophy that teaches deaf children appreciation of their language and their culture. As Bienvenu explained, "The bi-bi philosophy says that children must have a native language, for all kinds of reasons. The only accessible language for [deaf] children for acquisition purposes is ASL. English needs to be taught as a second language once they have the foundation of a native language."
This approach has been attacked by administrators as not being a proven teaching method. But as author Harlan Lane wrote in his recent book The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community, these critics did not require such proof of earlier methods such as "total communication" and "mainstreaming." The hearing establishment was comfortable with these methods because it maintained some level of control, according to Lane.
Gallaudet has a student-organized bi-bi committee that was formed to take responsibility for the education of the next generation. Members have committed to report back to their communities and to include a wider breadth of students that did the ASL Now movement. And this group is following all the proper procedures to be recognized on Gallaudet's campus.
Bienvenu is encouraged by such broad-minded thinking. "With the movement [growing] around the country, as many states recognize ASL and the success of bi-bi, people are looking at Gallaudet and really seeing how oppressive it is. People are finding in their language and culture their identity.
"Although other states are at different stages of implementing bi-bi, Indiana is unique and far ahead of everywhere else," says Bienvenu. "The leadership there is not just asking for [things to go] their way, they are educating people, including the governor's office, about why this is important and necessary."
Laurene Gallimore, supervising instructor at the Indiana School for the Deaf, explained their process. "I think you have to realize that there has to be an internal change in a person's belief system in order to follow a new philosophy," Gallimore said. "If you simply say to someone, 'Now you have to follow this,' it doesn't work. And it can really cause turmoil for people."
Bienvenu expressed a tempered hope for the future. Five years from now, she expects that "ASL will be recognized as a language in the Bilingual Education Act -- which now covers mostly American Indian languages -- giving ASL respect as a language." Her co-director at The Bicultural Center, Betty Colonomos, added her concern for education. "Eighty percent of deaf children are mainstreamed [into English-speaking schools]," Colonomos said. "The devastating consequences of a full generation of mainstreamed kids may bring back a movement toward regional or magnet schools where a critical mass of deaf kids are together."
Lane expressed a similar hope. "Because they brought about an abrupt redistribution of power and a heightened awareness of power relations between audists and deaf people," Lane wrote, "... the events of those eight days in March 1988 were, politically speaking, a revolution ... [But] the Gallaudet Revolution has yet to fulfill its promise."
Bob Hulteen was Under Review editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
Sowing Seeds for the Future
Mike Jackson was an elementary school teacher at the Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis when this article appeared. Laurene Gallimore was the supervising instructor there. They discussed for Sojourners the importance of language in deaf education.
-- The Editors
MIKE JACKSON: How has the deaf community changed since the Deaf President Now demonstration at Gallaudet five years ago?
LAURENE GALLIMORE: We are much more outspoken. The movement has really opened access for deaf people, particularly in employment.
In the past, many hearing people did not respect deaf individuals. Hearing people don't look at us as oddities as much anymore when they see us in public. They have a greater awareness of the deaf community. The deaf community is much less insular since the Deaf President Now movement.
JACKSON: And that has affected many areas of our lives. I moved to Indiana last year and was amazed with the insights of the bilingual, bicultural movement here. Would you say that the organizing at Gallaudet influenced the Indiana School for the Deaf [ISD]?
GALLIMORE: I think that the seeds, the inner rumblings, were already here. We may not have been articulating it yet, but it was here.
ISD had been pondering similar issues for quite a while, at least at an intuitive level. We were in a process of change, so these weren't new concepts for us. But we didn't have any experience from which to glean until the uprising at Gallaudet.
I think it is similar to the struggle of Native American Indian people. The Spaniards came in and oppressed them, took away their language, and suppressed their culture. Now indigenous people are struggling to bring that back for themselves.
I believe hearing people have perceived deaf people similarly, and have tried to oppress us. They've tried to take away our language, American Sign Language. The Deaf President Now movement suddenly gave definition to everything I had been feeling. For the first time I could say, "Yes, these issues are my issues; the concerns raised by this movement are my concerns." For the first time I could recognize my own oppression. I had not had the opportunity to examine my past as a deaf person, to see the places I could be proud. The Deaf President Now movement offered that opportunity. It's still not entirely clear what it all means and what our future will be. But that will come.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!