In 1988, students at Gallaudet University shut down the campus in protest, with one clear goal in mind: Deaf President Now. The school board had just selected their newest president- the seventh hearing president for a school almost entirely made up of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing students- and the people were pissed. Out of three candidates, the two Deaf men under consideration had been snubbed for yet another president who didn’t come from the culture the university represented, and even worse, didn’t use their language.
Let that sink in for a moment. Imagine going to a school where you and all your classmates speak English, but have a president- the most prominent position of power in the school- who only speaks Spanish. She brings a translator to every event, is inaccessible for casual conversation when seen on campus, and simply doesn’t understand her students at the most basic level. If you’re having trouble visualizing the situation, the explanation is pretty simple- it would never happen. And yet, the school board of Gallaudet put their students through this for over a century.
It’s difficult to understand why anyone would think this was a good decision, or even a maybe-sort-of-ok one. The board’s attempt to justify their choice only made matters worse; they
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Let’s be real here and acknowledge for a second that Mainstream Society has never really cared about Deaf people at all. Back-in-the-day, the American Deaf used to be forced to learn spoken English- despite not being able to hear it- and lip-reading- despite the fact that when done perfectly it is still only 30% effective. People who signed were compared to lowly animals. Students caught signing in school were punished severely. For many years, not only was it considered acceptable but it was the norm for people who couldn’t hear to be labeled “Deaf and