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At Gallaudet, Protests Are a Family Matter - washingtonpost.com
Before the lights are even flicked on, before the first cup of coffee is poured, the weapons are already buzzing in the Moore household.
A half-dozen text-messagers are lined up on the counter, juiced for another day in the battle to take down Jane K. Fernandes, president-elect of Gallaudet University -- a woman who, if you listen to the protesters, is a threat to the very heart of deaf culture in America.
It's hard to know exactly how she would destroy deaf culture, since Fernandes has yet to offer much in the way of detail about her plans for Gallaudet. In fact, she's offered herself as a champion of deaf culture.
But here they are, Dick and Doreen Moore and their son and two daughters and a sister from Kentucky and cousins from Iowa, all passionately engaged in the Gallaudet debate, camped out in the Moores' Beltsville split-level, waking at dawn, clipping their Sidekicks into their holsters and heading to the campus to do what they can to stop her ascension.
This is what you need to understand about them: Their family is part of the larger Gallaudet family. And that family has rejected Fernandes.
If the family doesn't want you, why would you want to stay?
* * *
What do they have against Fernandes, who served as Gallaudet's provost for seven years? The Moores echo the complaints heard across campus. S he's aloof. Autocratic. Unresponsive.
Ask for specifics and the protesters offer: She wasn't aggressive enough in making American Sign Language the standard on campus. She rubber-stamped disciplinary actions against staff without investigating the facts. She eliminated tenure for elementary and secondary school teachers.
If Fernandes is president, "Gallaudet will be in chaos," predicts Doreen Moore. "Faculty and staff would work under the cloak of fear and oppression. A large number of students will withdraw . . . future enrollments will be very low. The alumni will cease to donate money."
Listening to the litany of complaints against her yesterday, Fernandes waves her hands in frustration. "They're just throwing anything they can at me," she says. "At this point there's nothing left but for this to be a very personal attack."
Oscar Cohen, former superintendent of the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York, a K-12 school that has sent many graduates to Gallaudet, suggests that the role Fernandes has played until now may be partly to blame for the antipathy toward her.
"The president is the make-nice guy and the fundraiser, and the provost is your tough administrator," says Cohen. And the closeness of the community means that it also has a long memory, he says.
"Old grievances may bubble up in a more concentrated fashion" at Gallaudet, he says. "Whereas if you're hearing, you'd pack your bags [after college] and go to the West Coast or go elsewhere and your life would go on."
Consider the Moores and their extended family. Their lives still revolve around Gallaudet. Deaf and hearing, they are united in their opposition. Which makes Fernandes's refusal to leave all the more frustrating.
"We are not going to give up," signs Doreen Moore.
They've got generations of culture behind them. Generations that saw the outside world marginalize and shun them. Experiences that drew them closer together. Taught them how to win.
But they are up against a woman who made her own way without the advantage of a family imbued in deaf culture, although her mother was deaf. In this way, Fernandes points out, she is similar to the majority of deaf children. And the experience has made her strong.
"I think a lot of anger is being misdirected at me," she says, "and if I have to step -- " She stops herself.
"Does anyone believe that I would step down?"
* * *
Deafness runs through the Moore family tree. Doreen's great-great grandparents were deaf and had nine boys who were also deaf. Her parents met at a deaf club football game in Iowa. Doreen's sister has three deaf children. It's a trait that has been passed down through at least four generations of Dick's family as well. At least 21 from both sides of the family have attended Gallaudet.
Doreen and Dick met on Gallaudet's campus, and fell in love on a sailing trip with deaf friends from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod. "I always assumed I would have all deaf children," she signs. Her first, Sean, was. But then Shanna and Megan arrived, both hearing.
Once she got over the shock, she realized that she could holler at the girls and they would stop what they were doing. "Sean would always keep going," Doreen signs with a laugh. Her daughters grew up interpreting for the family; Shanna interpreted for this story.
Deafness permeates their lives. Dick Moore, who worked for 27 years as a printer for The Washington Post, is now a photographer specializing in deaf culture. Megan, 22, has become a professional interpreter. While Shanna, 23, has her eyes set on a nursing career, she's found the 25 miles between her Gaithersburg apartment and her parents' home too far, and would like to move closer.
Now in its fourth week, the protest against Fernandes has restructured their days. Sean, 25, commutes to his data analyst job in Silver Spring in the daytime, returning to Gallaudet at night to sleep in the protesters' tent city. An organizer last spring, he is there now to show support. Megan and Shanna have both provided interpreting services. Dick is shooting photographs. Doreen has brought food to feed hundreds of protesters, between her other catering jobs.
And now her cousins Rick and Val Herbold, who are deaf, have flown in from California to support their children, Tenaya and Charles, and other Gallaudet students. Their oldest, Blake, an '05 Gallaudet graduate, has also joined the fray. Dick's hearing sister Virginia has come from Kentucky to interpret for the president of the National Association of the Blind. At night she videoconferences with her 85-year-old mother back home in Kentucky, bringing her up to date.
Dick lends a hand to Doreen as she sets up a 50th-reunion dinner for the Class of '56 on campus. He points out a weather vane atop the steeple of Chapel Hall displaying the letters IDD: Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, the school's original name. Inside, portraits and busts of Gallaudet leaders adorn the walls. Dick, carrying in trays of brisket, pauses to point out a smaller photograph, separate from the rest.
It is Elizabeth Ann Zinser, the last hearing person chosen to lead the university. In 1988, after she was named the seventh president, thousands of Gallaudet students and alumni shut down the campus in protest, demanding "Deaf President Now." The Moores marched with their three children, pushing Shanna and Megan in strollers to the Capitol to demand a replacement.
Zinser's name comes up often during the current protest.
"She was a true leader," says Dick Moore. "She sat down and said, 'I'm not the best thing for this university, but it's not about me.' And then she stepped down."
* * *
Day 23 in the standoff and protesters continue to huddle -- about finances, donations, what their next step will be. They've met with Fernandes and I. King Jordan, the current president. They've reduced their demands to two. (Resign, and no reprisals against students.) That failing, they've taken over one building, then another. Marched on the Capitol. And still no sign of a resolution.
They are incensed that Fernandes frames the dispute as a debate over whether Gallaudet should be more inclusive, more diverse, more open to outside influences, including cochlear implants.
They hear what she says, that they want a president who was born into the deaf community, grew up speaking American Sign Language. They deny it. They know that what it means to be deaf is changing, the Moores will tell you. That's not it.
It's a bad feeling, really, about how she came to be selected. It started out as a protest about diversity. What was wrong with Glenn Anderson, an African American alumnus of the university, not to mention longtime chairman of the board of trustees? Why was Jordan, their leader and frontman, suddenly on the wrong side of the battle? Conspiracy theories abound.
But then they move on to other complaints: graduation rates, tenure, flagging academic achievement.
"They may not be able to put their finger on one thing," says Lexington's Cohen, "but they're feeling something is not right."
He wonders about who would want to replace Fernandes if the board turned on her. "Given everything that's happening," Cohen says, "who would put themselves in that position?"
* * *
In 1988 the Gallaudet story was so clear and so great. It was a very simple one that families recall as an example to their kids. Of how the university family finally lifted up one of its own. How they turned aside someone who was not one of them.
Dick Moore has memories of his parents taking the family out to dinner, and his mother trying to be as discreet as possible as she signed, holding her hands close to the table, using the smallest gestures possible.
"When people would stare, she'd tell us not to pay any attention, not to get angry."
Ultimately, he believes, it's not about how they say it. It's that they be heard.
Before the lights are even flicked on, before the first cup of coffee is poured, the weapons are already buzzing in the Moore household.
A half-dozen text-messagers are lined up on the counter, juiced for another day in the battle to take down Jane K. Fernandes, president-elect of Gallaudet University -- a woman who, if you listen to the protesters, is a threat to the very heart of deaf culture in America.
It's hard to know exactly how she would destroy deaf culture, since Fernandes has yet to offer much in the way of detail about her plans for Gallaudet. In fact, she's offered herself as a champion of deaf culture.
But here they are, Dick and Doreen Moore and their son and two daughters and a sister from Kentucky and cousins from Iowa, all passionately engaged in the Gallaudet debate, camped out in the Moores' Beltsville split-level, waking at dawn, clipping their Sidekicks into their holsters and heading to the campus to do what they can to stop her ascension.
This is what you need to understand about them: Their family is part of the larger Gallaudet family. And that family has rejected Fernandes.
If the family doesn't want you, why would you want to stay?
* * *
What do they have against Fernandes, who served as Gallaudet's provost for seven years? The Moores echo the complaints heard across campus. S he's aloof. Autocratic. Unresponsive.
Ask for specifics and the protesters offer: She wasn't aggressive enough in making American Sign Language the standard on campus. She rubber-stamped disciplinary actions against staff without investigating the facts. She eliminated tenure for elementary and secondary school teachers.
If Fernandes is president, "Gallaudet will be in chaos," predicts Doreen Moore. "Faculty and staff would work under the cloak of fear and oppression. A large number of students will withdraw . . . future enrollments will be very low. The alumni will cease to donate money."
Listening to the litany of complaints against her yesterday, Fernandes waves her hands in frustration. "They're just throwing anything they can at me," she says. "At this point there's nothing left but for this to be a very personal attack."
Oscar Cohen, former superintendent of the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York, a K-12 school that has sent many graduates to Gallaudet, suggests that the role Fernandes has played until now may be partly to blame for the antipathy toward her.
"The president is the make-nice guy and the fundraiser, and the provost is your tough administrator," says Cohen. And the closeness of the community means that it also has a long memory, he says.
"Old grievances may bubble up in a more concentrated fashion" at Gallaudet, he says. "Whereas if you're hearing, you'd pack your bags [after college] and go to the West Coast or go elsewhere and your life would go on."
Consider the Moores and their extended family. Their lives still revolve around Gallaudet. Deaf and hearing, they are united in their opposition. Which makes Fernandes's refusal to leave all the more frustrating.
"We are not going to give up," signs Doreen Moore.
They've got generations of culture behind them. Generations that saw the outside world marginalize and shun them. Experiences that drew them closer together. Taught them how to win.
But they are up against a woman who made her own way without the advantage of a family imbued in deaf culture, although her mother was deaf. In this way, Fernandes points out, she is similar to the majority of deaf children. And the experience has made her strong.
"I think a lot of anger is being misdirected at me," she says, "and if I have to step -- " She stops herself.
"Does anyone believe that I would step down?"
* * *
Deafness runs through the Moore family tree. Doreen's great-great grandparents were deaf and had nine boys who were also deaf. Her parents met at a deaf club football game in Iowa. Doreen's sister has three deaf children. It's a trait that has been passed down through at least four generations of Dick's family as well. At least 21 from both sides of the family have attended Gallaudet.
Doreen and Dick met on Gallaudet's campus, and fell in love on a sailing trip with deaf friends from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod. "I always assumed I would have all deaf children," she signs. Her first, Sean, was. But then Shanna and Megan arrived, both hearing.
Once she got over the shock, she realized that she could holler at the girls and they would stop what they were doing. "Sean would always keep going," Doreen signs with a laugh. Her daughters grew up interpreting for the family; Shanna interpreted for this story.
Deafness permeates their lives. Dick Moore, who worked for 27 years as a printer for The Washington Post, is now a photographer specializing in deaf culture. Megan, 22, has become a professional interpreter. While Shanna, 23, has her eyes set on a nursing career, she's found the 25 miles between her Gaithersburg apartment and her parents' home too far, and would like to move closer.
Now in its fourth week, the protest against Fernandes has restructured their days. Sean, 25, commutes to his data analyst job in Silver Spring in the daytime, returning to Gallaudet at night to sleep in the protesters' tent city. An organizer last spring, he is there now to show support. Megan and Shanna have both provided interpreting services. Dick is shooting photographs. Doreen has brought food to feed hundreds of protesters, between her other catering jobs.
And now her cousins Rick and Val Herbold, who are deaf, have flown in from California to support their children, Tenaya and Charles, and other Gallaudet students. Their oldest, Blake, an '05 Gallaudet graduate, has also joined the fray. Dick's hearing sister Virginia has come from Kentucky to interpret for the president of the National Association of the Blind. At night she videoconferences with her 85-year-old mother back home in Kentucky, bringing her up to date.
Dick lends a hand to Doreen as she sets up a 50th-reunion dinner for the Class of '56 on campus. He points out a weather vane atop the steeple of Chapel Hall displaying the letters IDD: Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, the school's original name. Inside, portraits and busts of Gallaudet leaders adorn the walls. Dick, carrying in trays of brisket, pauses to point out a smaller photograph, separate from the rest.
It is Elizabeth Ann Zinser, the last hearing person chosen to lead the university. In 1988, after she was named the seventh president, thousands of Gallaudet students and alumni shut down the campus in protest, demanding "Deaf President Now." The Moores marched with their three children, pushing Shanna and Megan in strollers to the Capitol to demand a replacement.
Zinser's name comes up often during the current protest.
"She was a true leader," says Dick Moore. "She sat down and said, 'I'm not the best thing for this university, but it's not about me.' And then she stepped down."
* * *
Day 23 in the standoff and protesters continue to huddle -- about finances, donations, what their next step will be. They've met with Fernandes and I. King Jordan, the current president. They've reduced their demands to two. (Resign, and no reprisals against students.) That failing, they've taken over one building, then another. Marched on the Capitol. And still no sign of a resolution.
They are incensed that Fernandes frames the dispute as a debate over whether Gallaudet should be more inclusive, more diverse, more open to outside influences, including cochlear implants.
They hear what she says, that they want a president who was born into the deaf community, grew up speaking American Sign Language. They deny it. They know that what it means to be deaf is changing, the Moores will tell you. That's not it.
It's a bad feeling, really, about how she came to be selected. It started out as a protest about diversity. What was wrong with Glenn Anderson, an African American alumnus of the university, not to mention longtime chairman of the board of trustees? Why was Jordan, their leader and frontman, suddenly on the wrong side of the battle? Conspiracy theories abound.
But then they move on to other complaints: graduation rates, tenure, flagging academic achievement.
"They may not be able to put their finger on one thing," says Lexington's Cohen, "but they're feeling something is not right."
He wonders about who would want to replace Fernandes if the board turned on her. "Given everything that's happening," Cohen says, "who would put themselves in that position?"
* * *
In 1988 the Gallaudet story was so clear and so great. It was a very simple one that families recall as an example to their kids. Of how the university family finally lifted up one of its own. How they turned aside someone who was not one of them.
Dick Moore has memories of his parents taking the family out to dinner, and his mother trying to be as discreet as possible as she signed, holding her hands close to the table, using the smallest gestures possible.
"When people would stare, she'd tell us not to pay any attention, not to get angry."
Ultimately, he believes, it's not about how they say it. It's that they be heard.