Someone who knows: please let me know: Gallaudet University in DC

[YOY]

My wife and I were watching the evening news and they were talking about the Gallaudet University protests here in DC regarding Jane K. Fernandes and the students' demand that she resign. They never say just why she is 'controversial' but those students look pissed and I want to know just what is going on?

Gallaudet is a top knotch school for the hearing impared for those of you who don't know...frankly I just want to know what all the protests lately are about.

What did this woman do exactly? Why is she so controversial?

I just want to know, the local media's coverage blows.

[DaveinMD]

1. the are upset

that they weren't included in the search process. I think they are also upset that the new president doesn't come from the deaf community.

[soothsayer]

2. As I understand it, they are mad because she was not BORN deaf

tho she became deaf later in life.

[YOY]

4. Here I thought it was because she supposedly wanted to destroy

deaf education of some other nonsense.

At the risk of sounding insensitive: big fricking deal. Deaf culture needs to be made more aware of as well as to be more integrated within regular culture. She sounds like a bridge to that effor.

[barb162]

3. wash post link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050402095.html

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Some recent threads ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=250&topic_id=2323&mesg_id=2323

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2555891&mesg_id=2555891

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2555891&mesg_id=2555891

The short answer is, she hasn't been conversant in ASL (American Sign Language) all her life. But it seems it's more complicated than that. The process by which she was selected/appointed seems to have left the students feeling unrepresented. I haven't followed it closely -- we got an announcement that a game against Gallaudet was cancelled because of the "situation on campus", so I went a-browsin'.