failure
The pressure on the Board of Trustees to remove Jane Fernandes from the presidency appears largely to have failed. The only thing it has demanded in its meeting was that Fernandes must resign from her position as provost to prepare for her ascension to the presidency. It is an admirable act of prestidigitation, because the Board of Trustess, under intense pressure, still refused to be forced its hands.
As Ridor has said, the turmoil between the FSSA and the administration will continue. The only time in recent history that we had such a turmoil was Harvard, when after only two years on the job, Summers was forced to resign in less than two years for his comments regarding women that the faculty disliked and derided as sexist.
Taking a step back, I talked with some hearing people over the issue. Dee, who's training to be an interpreter, played the Devil's Advocate and tried to disagree with my position. She said that at CalEd a few months ago, Fernandes gave a speech that she thought was supportive and proud of Deaf culture and Deaf education. She pointed out that 90% of deaf/hard-of-hearing people are, like me, mainstreamed, and only 10% goes to deaf schools. So comparably, Fernandes represents the actual majority of people with deafness as a disability, mainstreamed, oralist, and successful.
But Fernandes does not represent the true ideal of Deafhood, which involves going to deaf schools, learning ASL as a first language, and being proud enough to use ASL instead of talking or SimComming. In other words, do Deaf people want to believe that a truly Deaf person with a Deaf family could succeed as well as I.K. Jordan and J. K. Fernandes have?
Was those reasons how we got to this so incensed a revolt against Fernandes? I do not know enough to understand. My personal support for a better president revolves around the hope that someone who grows up using ASL will succeed, rather than someone who grows up in an oralist environment. Yes, people have disagreed with her leadership, with the flawed search process, and with her policies. Yet, could these have warranted a protest that stretched for fifteen days?
At a Deaf coffee yesterday in Berkeley, I had some interesting conversation. One Deaf woman, Ramona, said that there was this core group of Deaf people with Deaf families that have been quite powerful and influential in the community, and quite activist against the hearing society. I can see Ridor and Ella Mae Lentz as but two of these powerful members.
With such devoted and respected groups in the Deaf community, it is easy to see that Fernandes, as much as she would like to be president, simply cannot satisfy them. She is not made for them, because why else would the protest be so hostile, and the community so divided?
As Ridor has said, the turmoil between the FSSA and the administration will continue. The only time in recent history that we had such a turmoil was Harvard, when after only two years on the job, Summers was forced to resign in less than two years for his comments regarding women that the faculty disliked and derided as sexist.
Taking a step back, I talked with some hearing people over the issue. Dee, who's training to be an interpreter, played the Devil's Advocate and tried to disagree with my position. She said that at CalEd a few months ago, Fernandes gave a speech that she thought was supportive and proud of Deaf culture and Deaf education. She pointed out that 90% of deaf/hard-of-hearing people are, like me, mainstreamed, and only 10% goes to deaf schools. So comparably, Fernandes represents the actual majority of people with deafness as a disability, mainstreamed, oralist, and successful.
But Fernandes does not represent the true ideal of Deafhood, which involves going to deaf schools, learning ASL as a first language, and being proud enough to use ASL instead of talking or SimComming. In other words, do Deaf people want to believe that a truly Deaf person with a Deaf family could succeed as well as I.K. Jordan and J. K. Fernandes have?
Was those reasons how we got to this so incensed a revolt against Fernandes? I do not know enough to understand. My personal support for a better president revolves around the hope that someone who grows up using ASL will succeed, rather than someone who grows up in an oralist environment. Yes, people have disagreed with her leadership, with the flawed search process, and with her policies. Yet, could these have warranted a protest that stretched for fifteen days?
At a Deaf coffee yesterday in Berkeley, I had some interesting conversation. One Deaf woman, Ramona, said that there was this core group of Deaf people with Deaf families that have been quite powerful and influential in the community, and quite activist against the hearing society. I can see Ridor and Ella Mae Lentz as but two of these powerful members.
With such devoted and respected groups in the Deaf community, it is easy to see that Fernandes, as much as she would like to be president, simply cannot satisfy them. She is not made for them, because why else would the protest be so hostile, and the community so divided?
Labels: asl
posted by Alan at May 13, 2006
1 Comments:
yeah, i'm hoping the Board of Trustees will consider this protest when looking for a new provost. The additional qualification it may seek is culturally Deaf as defined by coming from a Deaf family.
Sometimes I wonder if the Deaf people are like royal families struggling to hold on to their power.
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