[EDLING:1977] Gallaudet: Turmoil at College for Deaf Reflects Broader Debate

[Francis M Hult]

via lg-policy...

> >From the NY Times, October 21, 2006
> Turmoil at College for Deaf Reflects Broader Debate
> By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
> 
> WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 Ask Joshua Walker, a sophomore at Gallaudet University
> here, about technology like cochlear implants that helps many deaf people
> hear, and he is dismissive. In some way, you're saying deaf people are not
> good enough, they need to be fixed, signed Mr. Walker, 20. I don't need to
> be fixed. My brain works fine. Protests over the selection of a new
> president, Jane K. Fernandes, have thrown Gallaudet, the nations only
> liberal arts university for the deaf, into turmoil. But the clash is also
> illuminating differences over the future of deaf culture writ large, and
> focusing attention on a politically charged debate about what it means to
> be deaf in the 21st century.
> 
> Should Gallaudet be the standard bearer for the view that sees deafness
> not as a disability, but as an identity, and that looks warily on
> technology like cochlear implants, questioning how well they work and
> arguing that they undermine a strong deaf identity and pride? Or should
> Gallaudet embrace the possibilities of connecting with the hearing world
> that technology can offer? Should it demand that students and teachers
> communicate exclusively in American Sign Language, as some professors and
> students insist, or should it permit deaf and hard of hearing students to
> learn in whatever way suits them? Should it require professors to be
> fluent signers, and provide interpreters for those who are not proficient?
> Or should it let students struggle to catch their meaning, as many say
> they now do?
> 
> These questions are not limited to Gallaudet. They are reflected in
> debates across the country as technology creates new possibilities for
> deaf people through cochlear implants and increasingly sophisticated
> hearing aids. With genetic testing, the day may come when parents can
> choose medical intervention for a child who is likely to be born deaf, or
> even choose not to have that child. With 96 percent of deaf children born
> to hearing parents, according to research by Gallaudet, many parents
> choose cochlear implants for their children at an early age, and 81
> percent choose to mainstream their children into hearing classrooms.
> 
> Joseph Fischgrund, headmaster for the last 20 years at the Pennsylvania
> School for the Deaf in Philadelphia, noted that advances like closed
> captioning and text pagers make it easier than ever for deaf people to
> have the same access to information as hearing people. Its a culture in
> transition, said Robert Kretschmer, coordinator of the program in the
> education of the deaf and hard of hearing at Columbia University Teachers
> College. What Gallaudet represents is clearly one very strong faction and
> identity of deaf culture, with a capital D.
> 
> Lawrence Fleischer, chairman of the deaf studies department at California
> State University, Northridge, signed through an interpreter his skepticism
> toward some of the new options. More parents are choosing cochlear
> implants for their children, Mr.  Fleischer said. We call it the false
> hope. We call it the magical consciousness, meaning that their
> consciousness is way below average, but they're pretending to have
> consciousness they don't really have. The implants are devices surgically
> placed in the inner ear, connected to a receiver around the ear which
> picks up sound, and transmits it as electrical impulses to the brain. They
> are not sounds as they are heard, unimpeded, but signals that deaf people
> must learn to interpret into words. About 100,000 people around the world
> wear cochlear implants, including 22,000 adults and 15,000 children in the
> United States, the Food and Drug Administration says.
> 
> At the American School for the Deaf, in West Hartford, Conn., the
> director, Edward Peltier, said about 12 percent of students had cochlear
> implants, up from about 3 percent a decade ago. The school is the
> birthplace of American Sign Language. Many Gallaudet students say they
> felt misunderstood and marginalized within their families, until they
> attended schools for the deaf and learned sign language. They say
> Gallaudet should play a strong advocacy role, lobbying to keep such
> schools open and remaining a forceful proponent of American Sign Language.
> 
> Students at Gallaudet have complained that Dr. Fernandes, who learned to
> sign only when she was 23, does not communicate well in A.S.L.  a point
> the university disputes and that she has permitted professors who do not
> sign well to continue teaching, putting students at a disadvantage at the
> one institution where, they say, they should not suffer for being deaf.
> These students, forced to lip read or make do with poor signing, may not
> catch every word.
> 
> One protester, Ronald Ferris, who is blind and deaf, said he believed that
> Dr. Fernandes did not connect with deaf people. In a measure of how
> personal the dispute has become, Mr. Ferris pointed to her choice of a
> husband as proof. She doesn't really feel us, he signed through
> interpreters. She's very critical of deaf culture, because she married
> somebody who hears. Bobby White, who leads a student group that opposes
> shutting down the campus, said, Communication is the primary and top issue
> here, adding, Theres no reason for me, as a deaf person, to use my voice
> on campus. In an interview with I. King Jordan, who is stepping down after
> 18 years as president, Dr. Fernandes, the former provost, said that she
> was committed 100, 150 percent to signing and deaf culture, and that
> signing would always be the preferred method of communication at
> Gallaudet.
> 
> But Dr. Fernandes said Gallaudet's future lay in welcoming and valuing deaf
> and hard of hearing students from all avenues and educational backgrounds,
> rather than in promoting a specific deaf political orthodoxy. She would
> never ban spoken language in classes and meetings, as some on campus
> propose, she said. This is a time of great change in deaf culture, she
> said. The passions and issues simmering beneath the discontent over Dr.
> Fernandes's appointment help explain the persistence of a protest that some
> expected would have calmed after last weekends arrests of 134
> demonstrators. Classes have resumed, but protesters are still camping out
> in tents by the main entrance.
> 
> This week, three in four faculty members called on Dr. Fernandes to
> resign, and the faculty voted no confidence in the board and Dr. Jordan.
> Until now, Dr. Jordan, Gallaudet's first deaf president, has been a
> treasured symbol in the deaf community. In the interview, Dr. Fernandes
> said that despite the opposition, she had no intention of resigning. Not
> all those opposed to Dr. Fernandes differ with her views about the
> technology or using spoken language. Nicole Moran, a sophomore from York,
> Pa., said she did not hesitate to choose a cochlear implant for her
> 3-year-old daughter, who was profoundly deaf at birth.
> 
> Her primary identity is as a deaf person, Ms. Moran said. But its a
> hearing world. Nevertheless, she said she did not support Dr. Fernandes.
> She's not an effective leader, Ms. Moran said. Others share this view.
> Thomas K. Holcomb, a professor of deaf studies whose two daughters were
> arrested at Gallaudet last weekend, said of Dr.  Fernandes, She says that
> her leadership style is to act behind the scenes, but what we really need
> is someone who can lead us out front, who can be our ambassador and
> inspire the larger public with issues regarding deaf people.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/education/21gallaudet.html?hp&ex=1161489600&en=5eec42995ceb4ba8&ei=5094&partner=homepage