Unity for Gallaudet Protest

Activities and Events Leading Up to the Protest

On September 1, 2005, I. King Jordan, president of Gallaudet University, announced his intentions to retire from the presidency effective December 31, 2006. The presidential search commenced and was led by a committee of board of trustee members, faculty, staff, alumni, and students. In February 2006, the final three candidates were announced: Jane Fernandes, provost of Gallaudet University; Ronald J. Stern, superintendent of New Mexico School for the Deaf; and Stephen Weiner, a faculty member at Gallaudet University. Students on campus started to host meetings, which included a rally to promote the community being involved with the search process. At one such rally, a student group composed of several organizations on campus (Black Deaf Student Union, Asian Pacific Association, and International Student Congress) collectively known as the Coalition of Organizations for Students of Color at Gallaudet expressed their concerns that Glenn B. Anderson, chair of the board of trustees from 1994 to 2006 who stepped down as chair to apply, was not one of the finalists. All of the finalists were White, and Anderson is Black; for this group and others on campus, it signified that “a qualified candidate of color was overlooked” and the female finalist, Fernandes, was “pre-ordained” as stated in a letter sent by the coalition’s leaders on April 24, 2006. At this point, the majority of the university community did not have the same view and, instead of joining the coalition, decided to maintain active involvement with the process. There was a large group of students known as “Not Without Us” that started developing identical interview questions for each candidate for which they reported answers, along with encouraging people to turn in evaluation forms after each candidate’s presentation. The two student groups did meet at the urging of two campus student leaders, Ryan Commerson and Allison Aubrecht, but after meeting, they could not come to a consensus on the search process. Members of the Coalition of Organizations for Students of Color at Gallaudet shared their view that the search process was flawed to begin with, due to the omission of Anderson despite his having a terminal degree unlike one of the final three candidates, Stern (who did present proof to the presidential search committee that he would complete his EdS degree by the time the presidency started). One other major concern was that Roz Rosen, a woman and a former provost of Gallaudet University, was eliminated from the process as well, resulting in male-only candidates. Members of the Not Without Us group heard and acknowledged those concerns, but were unable to agree that the search process needed to be reopened. They believed that the process would legitimately result in the omission of Fernandes, whom they viewed as the weakest candidate due to her poor performance as provost over the past six years. After the discussion, both groups went their separate ways and continued their respective actions (which included additional letters of concern to the board by both groups and the collection of survey results that showed a majority of the community did not support Fernandes as a candidate) up until the announcement of the selected president-elect.

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