Deaf President Now!: The 1988 Revolution at Gallaudet University

Introduction

Introduction I n order to understand the significance of the Deaf President Now (DPN) protest, it is necessary to place this event in its proper historical and social context. It appears that many people who had not thought much about deafness or deaf people were somewhat surprised to see a group of "handicapped" people achieve such a lopsided victory in the spring of1988. In fact, however, for more than 150 years deaf people have been involved in developing and shaping the deaf community in the United States, working to ensure the preservation ofAmerican Sign Language, and establishing a number of residential schools and selfhelp organizations. Our purpose here is not to describe these efforts toward self-determination in great detail, since others have done that very xiii well.1 Nevertheless, it is important to see that even though DPN was unique in the sense that it was more forceful and disruptive than previous efforts, it was, in many ways, an explosive culmination to years of relatively quiet struggle by an oppressed minority. The DPN protest is an example of what social scientists call collective action (or collective behavior). Collective action is group behavior that is relatively unpredictable, unstructured, spontaneous, and frequently disruptive . This type of behavior contrasts with more conventional everyday behavior, which is more institutionalized and predictable. Crowds, panics, protests, social movements, fads, crazes, and similar types of behavior are classified as collective action. Collective behavior is often seen as a way of achieving goals outside of the regular political process; some call it "politics by other means." * * * In the nineteenth century a number of significant events took place in the lives of deaf people in America. While deaf people themselves were responsible for much ofthe progress toward self-determination, especially in the growth and development of the deaf community, the assistance of hearing people who supported the goals of deaf people was often of vital importance. This was particularly true in the field of higher education. In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln took time out from his role as commander in chiefofthe Union forces in the Civil War to sign legislation that allowed the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to confer baccalaureate degrees. This institution, which had been established in 1857 by philanthropist and former postmaster general ofthe United States Amos Kendall, consisted of a few buildings on a parcel of land owned by Kendall about a mile northeast of the U.S. Capitol. At its inception, the school was limited to deaf and blind elementary and high school students. After 1864 college students were admitted to the National DeafMute College, the name given to the collegiate branch ofthe Columbia Institution (blind students began attending the Maryland School for the Blind in 1865). Since then, in a situation quite unusual in American education, students from kindergarten to college (and beyond) can attend 1. See, for example, Lane (1984, 1992), Gannon (1981), Van Cleve and Crouch (1989), and Schein (1989). xiv: INTRODUCTION school on the same campus, now known as "Kendall Green." In 1894 Congress changed the name of the college to Gallaudet College to honor Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Gallaudet was a nineteenth-century American clergyman who, along with Laurent Clerc, a deaf man and native of France, established the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut , the first permanent school for deaf students in America (Denninger , 1987; Jones and Achtzehn, 1992). The first superintendent of the Columbia Institution was a young man named Edward Miner Gallaudet, Thomas's son, who was hired by Kendall soon after the school's establishment. Gallaudet continued as president of the institution after it was given the authority to award the baccalaureate. Establishing a precedent for longevity that was followed by most of those succeeding him in office, he served as president for forty-six years (18641910 ). The Gallaudets were among those hearing people who assisted deaf people in their efforts to secure the skills necessary for success in the world, but other hearing people were not so benevolent. Throughout the nineteenth century many prominent hearing educators and administrators who worked with deaf people did not see them as qualified to teach or administer, even in the residential schools for deaf children that were being established around the nation, often by deaf people themselves (Moores, 1993). Ironically, these attitudes persisted even though sign language was usually the medium of instruction in these schools and even though...