Police moved Friday night to arrest students blocking entrances at Gallaudet University, protesting the incoming president of the nation’s only liberal arts college for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Diane Morton, a faculty member who supports the protest, said university President I. King Jordan authorized District police to make arrests shortly before 7 p.m.
Mercy Coogan, a university spokeswoman, said police were warning students to move or be taken into custody. The school has been virtually shut down since Wednesday, when students formed human chains at the gates, keeping vehicles form entering or exiting.
More than 200 students had taken over the campus, forming a human blockade at the school gates and shutting down classes. Last week they took over the main classroom, prompting a scuffle with campus police. It remained unclear whether university officials will use force to move the demonstrators.
The protesting students and some faculty members are demanding the resignation of Jane Fernandes, who was appointed in the spring to succeed Jordan. Those who are against her presidency say Fernandes isn’t open to different points of view and that the selection process did not reflect the student body’s diversity.
Fernades appeared before the protesters Friday evening and told them that she would not step down. Leaders say they want Congress, which created the school in 1864, to take over until a more suitable president is named. On Friday, the phalanx of D.C. police officers who had kept watch on the demonstrators from across Florida Avenue Northeast a day earlier had disappeared by early Friday.
Four students began a hunger strike Friday, putting up cots under a large open-aired tent.
Some of the protesters were operating under the assumption that police will not arrest them. Two students say they were told Thursday by D.C. police that they were not allowed to arrest the protesters.
A Metropolitan Police Department spokesman said protesters are mistaken if they believe that MPD doesn’t have the authority to arrest them. “We can make arrests anywhere in D.C. except for certain military bases,” said Officer D. Jackson.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
