Deaf President Now

Deaf President Now (DPN) was a student protest in March 1988 at Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. The protest began on March 6, 1988, when the Board of Trustees announced its decision to appoint a hearing candidate, Elisabeth Zinser, over the other Deaf candidates, Irving King Jordan and Harvey Corson, as its seventh president.

Gallaudet students, backed by a number of alumni, staff, and faculty, shut down the campus. Protesters barricaded gates, burned effigies, and gave interviews to the press demanding four specific concessions from the Board. The protest ended on March 13, 1988, after all four demands were met including the appointment of I. King Jordan, a deaf person, as university president.

Background of Gallaudet University

Gallaudet University was established in 1864 in Washington, D.C., by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet's youngest child, Edward Miner Gallaudet. Gallaudet University was the world's first university for Deaf and hard of hearing students.

Throughout Gallaudet’s history, the Deaf community has always felt more or less unsatisfied with the Deaf representation within the faculty. Prior to 1980, there hadn't been any Deaf chief academic officer or president. A significant push for a Deaf president, however, came when Jerry C. Lee, who had been president since 1984, resigned in 1987. Opposition argued that there were no "sufficiently well-trained deaf people." In the months following Lee’s resignation, Gallaudet's Board of Trustees looked at candidates for the next president; during this time, several organizations campaigned for a Deaf president. These organizations wrote letters of endorsement to the board recommending qualified deaf candidates and reached out to the media to gain support. People such as Vice-President George H. W. Bush and Senators Bob Dole, Bob Graham, Tom Harkin, and Lowell Weicker wrote letters of endorsement for the cause. Efforts during this time were unsuccessful in garnering a powerful and unified student backing for a Deaf president.

New presidential candidates

On February 28, 1988, the Board had narrowed the pool to three candidates: hearing person Elisabeth Zinser, Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Irving King Jordan, Gallaudet's Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who was deafened at age 21 due to a motorcycle accident; and Harvey Corson, superintendent of the American School for the Deaf, who had been born deaf.

A group called the "Ducks", a radical fringe faction of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), began organizing a rally. On March 1, 1988, the Ducks attracted more than a thousand students to Gallaudet’s football field to rally. The event garnered significantly more student support for the cause. In the following days, several small-scale protests on campus occurred. On March 6, 1988, the board selected Zinser, the sole hearing candidate, over the other two deaf applicants, Corson and Jordan, as the next president. The board, however, made no official announcement of this to the Gallaudet community; the student body found out later in the day by visiting the campus’ Public Relations Office.

Protest

Upon learning of the appointment of Zinser, an angry student body marched to the Mayflower Hotel, where the board members were meeting. The crowd waited outside until board member Jane Spilman came out to address the students. She responded to multiple questions surrounding the selection of Zinser as president, whereupon she allegedly said, "Deaf people cannot function in a hearing world." The student body then met back on campus to launch a full-scale protest.

The following morning, March 7, 1988, students barricaded the campus gates using heavy-duty bicycle locks and hot-wired buses, moving them in front of the gates and letting the air out of the tires. The locked gates forced people to use the front main entrance whereupon protestors allowed only select persons to enter.

The protesters had four demands:

# Zinser's resignation and the selection of a deaf person as president.
# The immediate resignation of Jane Bassett Spilman, chairperson of the Board of Trustees who elected Zinser.
# The reconstitution of the Board of Trustees with a 51% majority of deaf members (at the time, it was composed of 17 hearing members and 4 Deaf members).
# There would be no reprisals against any students or staff members involved in the protest.
The Board scheduled a noon meeting with a group of students, faculty, and staff to negotiate. The Board, however, did not concede to any of the demands. The supporters of DPN then marched to the US Capitol Building.Deaf Mosaic: Gallaudet University's Television Program, 1988. The protest was led in part by four students, Bridgetta Bourne, Jerry Covell, Greg Hlibok, and Tim Rarus.

The following day, a rally was held on Gallaudet’s football field around effigies of Zinser and Spilman and the crowd continued to grow. A sixteen-member council was formed and composed of four students, three faculty, three staff, three alumni, and three members of the deaf community; at the council’s head was student Greg Hlibok.
On Wednesday, March 9, a press conference was held at the National Press Club in which board member Jane Spilman and newly elected Elizabeth Zinser made statements and addressed questions about Zinser’s attitude toward and capability to lead the Deaf community. Irving King Jordan, dean of Gallaudet’s College of Arts and Sciences and one of the three finalists for Gallaudet’s next president, publicly supported the appointment of Zinser. Later that evening, protest leader Greg Hlibok, Zinser, and deaf actress and Gallaudet alumni Marlee Matlin, were interviewed about the protest on ABC News' ''Nightline'' program.

On Thursday, March 10, Irving King Jordan came to Gallaudet to address the protesters, retracting his earlier support of Zinser as president, "I only have anger towards the decision of the Board. We need to focus the world's attention on the larger issue. The four demands are justified." Meanwhile, in the University's interpreter/communication center, hearing protesters received phone calls from businesses, friends and anonymous donations of money, food and other supplies to aid the protest.

Support

Other help outside the deaf community came from worker unions. Moe Biller, then president of the American Postal Workers Union, shared his support for the protest.
In the afternoon, Zinser officially resigned.

The following morning, Friday, March 11, more than 2,500 protesters marched on Capitol Hill to celebrate. Determined to fully see their demands through, students held banners that said, "We still have a dream!"

On Sunday, March 13, 1988, Jane Spilman officially resigned and was replaced by deaf board member Phil Bravin. Bravin announced that the board had selected King Jordan as the next University president. Bravin also informed that no punitive action was going to be taken against those who participated in the protests. Students, faculty, and staff celebrated in Gallaudet's field house.

Throughout the week, dozens of American Sign Language/English interpreters participated in the protest by lending their linguistic skills. The interpreters challenged traditional standards of practice and participated due to a sense of collective identity with the protesters. The interpreters would only be used for important rallies and meetings. They would also help with media interviews, rallies, interactions with the police, and other demonstrations. One of the interpreters for DPN did an interview and stated, “I was trying to reflect the fact that it was the media that needed the interpreters as much as the deaf people did.” Letting people, such as interviewers, know they were also the ones who needed the interpreters tells them, “No, I’m here interpreting because you guys can’t communicate directly with each other.” Interpreting for the DPN movement was not an easy task. While attending school, they were taught to translate English into ASL, but for this movement, they had to translate from ASL to English, which was something they were not used to. This led them to not be able to prepare for interviews or other events happening for the movement. Interpreters knew how important it was for them to interpret the right information for both sides of the party. To make sure the interpreters would have the right understanding, they would tell the deaf protesters that they did understand what they said, but they just wanted to make sure they had the correct information. By doing this, they would show the deaf person that they did understand what they said, but they just wanted to get the right information from the other party.

Media framing

Disability rights movements before DPN typically had a negative public frame. Before 1988, the Deaf community had not been accurately portrayed in the media, alongside the tension that was rising throughout the University. As more journalists, mainly from ''The Washington Post'' and ''The New York Times,'' started covering the movement, a more positive outlook started to emerge. The reporters used four main frames to cover the DPN campaign: effective conduct, external support, internal unification, and justifiable action. External support and internal unification were both used towards the start and the middle stages. They framed the movement in a way to gather more people to talk about the things that were occurring within Gallaudet. ''The New York Times'' produced a headline that said, “Campus Protest by the Deaf Is Widening,” and it focused on the main groups who joined the movement to fight for a new president. Justifiable action and effective conduct were used in the later stages of the movement and supported the movement's goals. ''The New York Times'' produced an article that stated the movement, and the protesters had a right to ask for change. ''The Washington Post'' said there is pressure being placed on Capitol Hill due to the protests. Almost all of the photos taken of the protesters were positive. All images showed the protesters as large groups to show the unified determination to elect a deaf president.

Both Elisabeth Zinser and Jill Spilman wanted nothing to do with the protests. They were both pictured alone, with one another, or with an interpreter. Neither Spilman nor Zinser knew sign language. There is an image of Zinser signing "I love you," one of the very few learned signs. This image is important because she wasn't signing it to anyone within a conversation, instead she was using it more as a symbol. The pictures of Spilman and Zinser being alone go against the unified front the protesters made. It is thought that Deaf President Now gained so much acceptance from everyone, ranging from the media to the public, due to the idea of standing with disabled communities within a non-disabled society.

Resolution

Jordan announced his retirement in September 2005 and later on December 31 of 2006 he stepped down from the president of Gallaudet University. He was later criticized when he backed Jane Fernandes' candidacy to become his successor in 2006. In October 2006, the four DPN student leaders from 1988 issued a public statement, which was harshly critical of both Jordan and Fernandes. The Deaf President Now movement had a lifelong effect on the Deaf community, leading to new bills and laws that protected the rights of Deaf and disabled people that were not previously protected. One of these laws being the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), this law gave protections from wrongful termination in the workplace and other acts of discrimination based on disabilities.

Global effects

The Deaf President Now movement (DPN) was a catalyst for other movements about Deaf culture, one being in South Africa. The South African Council for Deaf, run completely by hearing people, was founded in 1929. The movement in South Africa protested against the state of affairs and demanded that their council be run by Deaf people just as DPN had done.The first Deaf Culture Workshop was held in 1989 and they began asking for changes and started discussing rights deserved in the Deaf community. Later in 1990 the first Deaf chairperson was included, their name is Nico Beaurain. In 1996 the first Deaf national director was named, Kobus Kellerman. The former South African National Council for the Deaf (SANCD) drastically changed its organization becoming a more democratically elected organization and was renamed, the Deaf Federation of South Africa. Members of the organization took this positively and said this organization was previously for Deaf people and now is one of Deaf people. This change in systematic organization meant that decisions were no longer going to be made by hearing people on the behalf of Deaf people but now is going to be made by Deaf people for Deaf people.

In the media

A documentary on the protest, ''Deaf President Now!'', premiered on Apple TV+ on May 16, 2025. The film is the directorial debut of Gallaudet alum Nyle DiMarco.

Notes

References

Sources

*Sacks, Oliver. '' Seeing Voices: A journey into the world of the Deaf''. Harper Perennial, 1989. .
*Shapiro, Joseph P. ''No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement''. Random House, 1993.
*Gannon, Jack R. "The Week the World Heard Gallaudet". Gallaudet University Press, 1989. .
Excerpts on Google Books
*Deaf President Now contemporaneous letters and press releases, February–March 198

*Halley, M. (2019). Interpreting as ideologically-structured action: Collective identity between activist interpreters and protesters. New Voices in Translation Studies, 20, 54–85.
*Brueggemann, Brenda Jo (1995). "The Coming out of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language: An Exploration into Visual Rhetoric and Literacy". ''Rhetoric Review''. 13 (2): 409–420. ISSN (identifier), ISSN 0735-0198.
*Christiansen, John B.; Barnartt, Sharon N. (1995). ''Deaf President Now!: The 1988 Revolution at Gallaudet University''. Gallaudet University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2rcngrg. .
*Druchen, Bruno (2014). "The Legacy of Deaf President Now in South Africa". ''Sign Language Studies''. 15 (1): 74–86. doi:10.1353/sls.2014.0020. ISSN (identifier), ISSN 1533-6263.
*Halley, Mark (2022). "Interpreting in the Deaf President Now Protest: An Organizational Overview". ''Sign Language Studies''. 22 (3): 399–429. ISSN (identifier), ISSN 1533-6263.
*Orlans, Harold (1989). "The Revolution at Gallaudet: Students Provoke Break with Past". ''Change''. 21 (1): 8–18. ISSN (identifier), ISSN 0009-1383.
*Reynolds, Cecil; Vannest, Kimberly; Fletcher-Janzen, Elaine (2014). "Deaf President Now". ''search.credoreference.com''. Retrieved 2025-03-31.

External links

The Week of DPN...
The Deaf President Now movement website, from Gallaudet University
"At Gallaudet, a Turn Inward Opens New Worlds"
April 30, 2006 ''All Things Considered''

{{Deaf rights movement

1988 protests
Deaf culture in the United States
Gallaudet University
Student strikes in the United States
Student protests in Washington, D.C.
1988 in Washington, D.C.
March 1988 in the United States