Gallaudet backs down

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

The trustees of Gallaudet University, the nation’s leading college for the deaf, last week bowed to intense pressure from students and rescinded their appointment of Jane Fernandes as president. For weeks, students have been staging vigorous anti-Fernandes protests, claiming that she does not recognize the centrality of American Sign Language to deaf culture. Fernandes, who is deaf and has been serving for years as the school’s provost, didn’t learn to sign until she was in her late 20s. She argues that hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other technologies can help deaf people in a hearing world, and she says her critics are pushing an extreme “separatist” agenda. The trustees said the decision to cancel its offer to Fernandes was made with “regret and pain.”