The national university for the deaf is located in Washington, D.C. Over the years it has been the locus of a lot of controversey. Recently a new president was named. She is deaf, but grew up learning to speak rather than to sign. She did not learn to sign until she was an adult. Her name is Jane Fernandes. She had served as the provost before being selected. By all accounts she is well qualified to serve as president. She has experience in the field, a strong academic background and a good knowledge of the university. But for some in the deaf community that may not be enough.
Accoding to some the search was flawed. The current president, who has been there since 1988, interviewed all three candidates for the job. That may be the wrong term because in every search I have known the outgoing president has an opportunity to talk with finalists about the campus at some point in the search. The current president also served as a reference for Fernandes - but since she served as his provost that seems appropriate. Some on the campus have charged that the board was not really engaged in this search or that somehow the current president manipulated the process. If you just look at the "paper" on the Gallaudet website Fernandes is clearly the superior candidate. One of the other two candidates has a doctorate in progress. All three have long careers in working with the deaf but the mix of education and experience shows Fernandes as the best. Fednandes has a pretty good academic pedigree - her dissertation (University of Iowa) was on writing by deaf Iowans. In the world that the university has defined as being acceptable - a candidate who is deaf - the available choices are limited. Based on the resumes of each of the three candidates, Fernandes is the only one who might be considered as a candidate for a presidency outside of Gallaudet.
There is also the concern that Fernandes was late in learning to sign. In the encounters I have had with the deaf community there are a group who support signing and a group who support vocalization. The bridge between the two is immense. Fernandes served as Chair of the signing department at the university so she seems to have some facility in the area. Ultimately, the goal of education for the deaf should be to encourage students to enter the mainstream - but in today's politically correct atmosphere it must also be in the "right" stream.
There protesters also argue that somehow Fernandes is not representative of the community. Increasingly, the problems of the deaf are recognized to cross racial lines. In this case both of her competitors were white males.
Then there is the rap that the board simply rubber stamped the current president's choice for a successor. One current student,sophomore Kevin Fletcher said, "We felt we hadn't been heard." (Is that ironic or what?) But with a president who has served the university for almost twenty years it is not surprising that he might have some influence in the selection of a successor. Ideally, a president, besides the obligatory visit during the final visits, should stay out of the search. But that principle is honored in the breach. What the protesters don't seem to get is that the pool as they have defined it is a limited one.
Gallaudet is a place that has seen this kind of controversey before. When the I. King Jordan was named president in 1988, his predecessor was the last non-deaf president. That presidency lasted a very short time because members of the deaf community hounded him out. California benefitted from this in that the current president of National University, Jerry Lee, came after three years at Gallaudet. Jerry took National from virtual bankruptcy into a place that is among the finest universities in the nation for adult learners. After a short interim presidency Jordan was selected and the campus cooled down. While the emotional situation for having a deaf president was satisfied, Gallaudet probably lost by losing Lee. His entrepreneurial record at National could have been applied to Gallaudet. But that is often what the blinders of political correctness create.
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I know this is already a dated issue but I wanted to chime in. You've cleverly crafted this issue as one of 'political correctness' above all else. The core of the issue for the Gaulaudet community is very different. For the Deaf, this is an issue of culture and self-determination. Unlike other disabled people who are hearing and therefore *naturally* integrated into mainstream society, the Deaf are separated lingusistically from mainstream society. It would take an entire book on cognitive psychology and linguistics to explain all the ramifications but the short version is that the Deaf are uniquely situated to both form and require their own culture and language - which they have done in the USA. When 90% of pre-lingually deaf children are born to hearing families, they are usually cut off from their cultural heritage unless unusual circumstances intervene. Surrounded by hearing people most of their lives, deaf children are given subtle and non-too-subtle messages that they are intellectually defective from a young age. What is happening is that the hearing culture around them says, essentially "we are too inconvenienced by YOUR linguistics needs that we will force you to bend to our way. We won't even meet you half way. Sucks to be you!" Lucky children so situated find their way to deaf residential schools where they are quite literally set free from this constant stream of negative messages. Finally they see Deaf adults who are educated and professionally active. Finally they meet other Deaf children and the sense of isolation and 'defectiveness' begins to subside. Gaulaudet university is the only university in the world where the entire format is (mostly) by the Deaf and for the Deaf on their terms. This not to say that Deaf folks are universally unwelcoming to hearing people, hard-of-hearing people, late-deafened people, etc. It's just that they want leaders, policy-makers and role-models to 'get it' in their gut the way only born-deaf and early-deaf persons can. Late deafened people will sometimes learn ASL (American Sign Language) as an adaptive strategy and, much less commonly, make the culturaly shift into Deaf society. More often than not such persons persist in viewing themselves as someone who has become defective, has a lack and the lack of self-esteem and accomplishment that follows. It's exactly those persons that the Deaf do NOT want in leadership positions. So yes, this is a political issue but NOT in the way you have chosen to frame it.
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