Voice of the Deaf

The protesters compiled four demands: “(1) replace Zinser with a Deaf president; (2) replace the board’s chair; (3) increase Deaf representation on the board to a majority [of 51%]; (4) assure no reprisals against the protesters” . Jerry Covell, a senior of twenty-three years, voiced through an interpreter, “We will stay out of the classroom forever if we have to”. On the morning of March 10, 1988, the president of Gallaudet University resigned.

On March 13, 1988, Spilman was replaced by Phil Bravin, a deaf leader, as the chair of the Board of Trustees. In addition, the Board promised to keep a fifty-one percent majority of deaf people on the Board. All students walked away with no reproaches. With all demands nearly met, the students of Gallaudet celebrated the first major victory for the Deaf Community (History behind DPN).

The impact of Deaf President Now struck the hearing population with surprise. Most of the hearing community believed that deaf people could not achieve everything a hearing person could achieve. Despite this thinking, the Deaf Community’s protest met great success. A number of reasons exist explaining why the revolt met with so much success.

Aside from the immediate effects of the protest, one of the most important legal contributions to the Deaf Community passed through congress in 1990. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) modified the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The ADA created a better definition for disability by removing homosexuality, bisexuality, and other conditions from its definition thus focusing the entire document on disabled persons.

The ADA also contains a list of services and aids for people with hearing impairment: “qualified interpreters, note takers, transcription services, written materials, telephone handset amplifiers, assertive listening devices, assertive listening systems, telephones compatible with hearing aids, closed caption decoders, open and closed captioning, telecommunications for deaf persons (TDDs) [and] video text displays”.

After passing the act, nearly every school in the country was ordered to make accommodations to comply with the law. Some schools needed to change as little as their fire alarms while others required full-time interpreters for deaf students. Every school with government funding, whether it be state or federal money, had to comply with the terms of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA.

The preservation of the Deaf culture has always been a major aspect of deaf Americans’ lives. The protest of students at Gallaudet University sparked the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA have both been invaluable towards helping the community gain entitled equality and rights. The two acts together have brought astounding advancement in the treatment and technology pertaining to the Deaf Community. No longer will the Deaf Community lack opportunity.

Through advances in communication, the gap between the hearing world and the deaf world has been bridged. By means of understanding, both the hearing world and the Deaf Community began to view each other as equals. The ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act created this equality and forever changed the lives of many in need.