Two decades ago, I. King Jordan took the podium as president of Gallaudet University.
It remains a watershed moment. After prolonged and raucous protest, the world’s only liberal arts college for the deaf had appointed its first deaf president. The college’s board had to rescind a choice it had already made.
Jordan thanked the protesters for being “willing to commit yourselves to a cause that you believed to be just and right.”
Now Jordan himself is the target of protesters, who say that the appointment of his successor, Jane Fernandes, was rigged.
If the protesters win, he has said publicly, then the school will be ungovernable.
Gallaudet spokeswoman Mercy Coogan said the past and present protests are distinct.
“The protest in 1988 was a civil rights protest — the right of deaf people to run their own university,” she said. “This time, the majority of the board of trustees was deaf, the vast majority of the selection committee was deaf, the candidates were all deaf.”
Besides, “it’s not a democracy,” Coogan added.
But events have pressed quickly at the Northeast campus, and Jordan — once a hero in the deaf world — seems to have been outpaced by them. On Gallaudet’s online message board, many protesters have written that they feel betrayed by the outgoing president’s stance.
Both sides dug in on Monday. Leaders of the board of trustees told protesters in a closed-door meeting that Fernandes wouldn’t be recalled.
“Jane is not resigning,” Coogan said.
Faculty met Monday afternoon for a no-confidence vote.
“We will not give up,” faculty member Jeff Lewis said in a statement.
By comparison, this round of protests at Gallaudet has been sedate. In 1988, students spontaneously marched on the Capitol and on the White House.
They also used cars to block the main gates and formed human chains to keep administrators off campus.
Gallaudet protests
» Fernandes has served as Gallaudet’s provost since 2000.
» Her critics say she’s abrasive, that academic standards have declined under her leadership and that more qualified applicants were excluded early in the process.
» Fernandes says that her critics don’t trust her because she’s not an “ideal” deaf person — she grew up deaf but speaks and didn’t learn sign language until she was 23.
