It's not about her being not Deaf enough or being a poor ASL user.

I hold a BA in English and a MA in Counseling, both from Gallaudet and I work as a mental health clincian at a non-profit agency. Guess what?? I am profoundly Deaf (since birth) and I don't see anything wrong with being Deaf. The reality is that hearing people have been trying to FIX (indicating that there's something terribly wrong with us) us for, uh...centuries and centuries...believe it or not.

Accept us the way we are as we you. Accept the differences.

James, be careful with what you say here and I respect your willingness to explore this...further.

Yet I want to share something interesting: it takes one to hear one's voice in order to speak really well. So since we're deaf, it's organically impossible for us to really pronounce vocally the way hearing people do.

So, once you put yourself in the shoes of a Deaf person, you'll understand. That's all it takes for one to really understand the purpose of protests that's happening at Gallaudet.

Educate yourself: find out what audism (not autism, mind you) means.

Like spoken languages which can be divided into phonology, morphology and syntactic components, American Sign Language can be divided into equivalent parts, although not based on sound distinctions. Sign languages occur in a visual-spatial medium as opposed to a sound-based medium.

For most people at Gallaudet, ASL is their primary language. Throwing aside the claims that Jane K. Fernandes is a poor leader and does not support Deaf culture (which are arguments I can have no hope of verifying), we are still left with the argument that she does not sign fluently, and that she allows professors under her who sign poorly to remain in the classroom.

Let's imagine, for a moment, that ASL is not the language in question; let's say it's English. An English speaking university, existing in Montreal, is undergoing a presidential search process. The university's students attend there because of its strong Anglophone culture. The University selects as its president a person who not only does not speak English well enough to be regularly understood with ease by her students, but also allows professors with poor English to remain in the classroom.

It seems absurd that the university would suggest such a candidate, doesn't it? Someone who communicates poorly and fosters poor communication and who does not speak the primary language of her community well is not a good candidate for presidency at any university.

To understand deafness, don't plug your ears or contemplate blindness: Go to a foreign country. Live where you can understand no one, and only by undignified and humiliating gesticulations can you convey even the simplest ideas to people, who will then conclude that you're retarded. Your disadvantage will ensure that, should you encounter any, you will form a treasured little subculture with anyone who speaks your language. Or signs it.

I remember fondly a faculty member who befriended me in college and became a sort of mentor, offering me help with my studies, advice, and encouragement. We met in the deaf studies section of the cafeteria nearly every day, and became close friends. Years later, while reading a news article about the school, I learned that my friend was deaf! It had never occurred to me to ask if she spoke English; we had always signed. Did her deafness impose a disadvantage?

Technically, not hearing is a dis-ability, but so is being unable to swim, type, or speak French. Being unable to speak French imposes no particular disadvantage, unless you are surrounded by Frenchmen--and then it can control your life! Deaf people are surrounded by speakers, i.e. people debilitated by an impairment of their ability to sign. Since these speakers hold nearly all power, it puts signers at a disadvantage in regards to housing, jobs, medical care, the legal system and much more. These disadvantages are not imposed by deafness: they do not exist in communities where everyone signs: they are imposed by other people, through inability to understand, or unwillingness, and as often just plain bigotry. How should a deaf person adapt to this?

Partly by biology and partly by prejudice, Deaf people don't so much adopt a separate medium of communication, as have it forced on them. It's not like your eye surgery example where you stand to lose nothing: if you were a solitary Anglo in Paris, would you still welcome a medical "cure" for your dis-ability to communicate, if it meant abandoning all your English language and culture?