Law-Breakers Accountable, BoT Says

Gallaudet Board Ousts Fernandes
As Protesters Cheer, Trustees Say Law-Breakers ‘Will
Be Held Accountable’

By Susan Kinzie, Nelson Hernandez and David A.
Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 30, 2006; A01

The governing board of Gallaudet University revoked
the appointment of the school’s incoming president
yesterday, giving in to the demands of students,
faculty and others whose protests have kept the
nation’s premier school for the deaf in turmoil for
the past month.

The board, meeting in a special session at a hotel
near Dulles International Airport, voted to
“terminate” Jane K. Fernandes’s position as
president-designate and said she would not take over
for President I. King Jordan as planned Jan. 1. The
board issued a statement late yesterday afternoon
saying the decision was made with “much regret and
pain.”

“We understand the impact of this decision and the
important issues that inherently arise when a Board
re-examines decisions in the face of an on-going
protest,” the statement read. “The Board believes that
it is in the best interests of the University to
terminate Dr. Fernandes from the incoming President’s
position.”

The news set off a wild celebration at Gallaudet’s
Northeast Washington campus yesterday afternoon, with
protest leaders cheering and embracing one another.
Their reaction also showed the depth of bitterness
some feel toward Fernandes, as protesters shredded a
large effigy of her and then set it on fire.

“I’m elated. I’m so excited right now,” said LaToya
Plummer, a leader among the opposition to Fernandes.
“The next step is to focus on how we want to improve
the search process.”

Said board member Susan Elliott: “Let the healing
begin.”

The decision brought an end to the protests. Last
night, student leaders said they met with some board
members who said that protesters arrested during
demonstrations will not automatically be expelled but
that there will be consequences. The board of trustees
issued a statement saying that although they respected
the right to free speech, “individuals who violated
the law and Gallaudet University’s Code of Conduct
will be held accountable.”

Some board members asked students to make a good-faith
effort to clean the campus, open all gates and return
to classes. Students said they would do so today.

Gallaudet students, staff and alumni had raised a
variety of objections to Fernandes since she was
appointed in the spring, saying she was a divisive
figure and the process that selected her was unfair.

Fernandes had previously vowed that she would not
quit, despite protests that have included takeovers of
school buildings and a three-day blockade of the
campus that ended with 130 arrests. She issued a
statement yesterday, making it clear that the decision
to end her appointment was the board’s and not hers.

“It is with deep regret that I heard the Board’s
decision to terminate my contract,” Fernandes said. “I
love Gallaudet University and I believe I could have
made a significant contribution to its future.”

Neither her statement nor the university’s said what
Fernandes, 50, who is no longer provost, would do
next, or whether she would receive compensation for
the loss of her position. Board member Frank Wu, who
is chairman of the compensation committee, said
earlier this month that rumors of a $2 million buyout
clause were untrue. He said it is customary for
college presidents to have severance provisions in
their contract, typically for a year at an amount near
their salary.

Gallaudet, founded in 1864, has a student body of
about 1,800 students, and its campus also includes a
high school and elementary school for deaf and
hard-of-hearing students. Because of the school’s
status, its president is often seen as a national
leader in the deaf community — a symbolic importance
that makes selecting a president there an even more
complicated process than it is on most college
campuses.

In 1988, after the university’s board selected a
hearing woman as its president, mass protests swept
Jordan into office as the school’s first deaf leader.
This spring, the selection of Fernandes to succeed
Jordan set off a new protest movement that — while
its objections were far more complex than the old
rallying cry of “Deaf President Now” — reached a
similar level of intensity.

Some said there was insufficient diversity among
members of the candidate pool, that a white man with a
master’s degree advanced further in the process than a
black man with a doctorate and that Jordan was overly
involved in the search.

Other objections focused on Fernandes, who has long
been a controversial figure at Gallaudet. Some
objected to the way she was appointed provost by
Jordan six years earlier and others said she had
alienated too many staff and faculty members in her 11
years at the school. Immediately after the board
announced she would be the next president, students
walked out of the auditorium.

After a quiet summer, protests resumed this month as
the board came to campus for its October meeting.

Student leaders took over an academic building for
several days. Then members of the football team joined
the protests, and all entrances to the campus were
blocked. The campus was shut down until more than 130
protesters were arrested. Faculty voted to ask
Fernandes to resign or be removed, and alumni joined
the tents dotting the lawn. Last weekend, an estimated
2,000 people marched to the U.S. Capitol.

Before yesterday, Fernandes had insisted that she was
the only person to lead the campus at a time such as
this. She said the roots of objections against her lay
in deaf identity politics: Fernandes is deaf, but she
grew up among hearing children and did not learn
American Sign Language — used commonly at Gallaudet
– until her 20s.

But, as the protests went on, support on the board
began to erode.

Yesterday’s meeting brought the conflict to a new
turning point. Near the hotel, a group of 250 or so
protesters arrived on buses Saturday evening. They
held candles along a roadside. On campus, protest
leaders were already promising a new blockade at 6
a.m. today if the board did not reject Fernandes.

The 20-member board includes three members of
Congress, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rep. Ray LaHood
(R-Ill.) and Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey (D-Calif.),
reflecting the fact that a majority of Gallaudet’s
funding comes from the federal government.

When the board decided to oust Fernandes, the reaction
spread by pager and e-mail through the coalition of
parents, alumni, students, staff and others in the
U.S. deaf community who had sought it.

On campus, people hugged, leapt in the air and cheered
aloud and in sign language. When a student leader held
up a large wood-and-cardboard drawing of Fernandes,
many in the crowd yelled, “Burn it!” or waved their
fingers in the air to say “burning” in sign language.

But as time passed, all protesters wanted to talk
about was healing the divisions.

Some on campus, however, said yesterday that the
entire episode might leave Gallaudet divided between
those who backed Fernandes and those who opposed her.
One of Fernandes’s supporters, sociology professor
Margaret Vitullo, said that yesterday was a “very,
very sad day” for the school.

“The short-term gain may be there,” she said, for
those celebrating on campus. “They think they’ve done
this wonderful thing for Gallaudet — but they’ve
fundamentally weakened the rule of law, and they’ve
fundamentally weakened the university.”

Sources close to the board, who asked not to be named
because board negotiations are private, said the board
will be talking about the role Jordan will have and
whether to bring in an interim president. One possible
candidate, sources said, is Robert Davila, who served
as chief executive for the National Technical
Institute for the Deaf.

Jordan issued a statement yesterday afternoon urging
the Gallaudet community to overcome divisions that, in
his words, “overtook reason, respect, and civility.”

“We should not look for a resolution to the struggle
of recent months in terms of winners and losers,” he
said. “If we do, Gallaudet and our students will be
the losers.”

Correction to This Article
Earlier versions of this article in the print and
online editions of The Washington Post incorrectly
referred to severance packages for college professors.
The sentence should have said that severance packages
customarily offered to college presidents — not
professors — typically equal about one year of the
former president’s salary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/29/AR2006102900533.html

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