Students Shut Down University for the Deaf, Force Newly Named President to Resign

The students began protesting after Gallaudet's Board of Trustees announced that it had elected Elisabeth A. Zinser, who is not deaf, to be the seventh president of the 124-year-old university.

The students garnered support from key Congressmen, as well as from many members of the university's faculty and staff. The Congressmen said the appointment of a hearing president could jeopardize the institution's federal financing.

Ms. Zinser, vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, does not know sign language and had no experience in deaf eduction. She was one of three finalists, the other two of whom are deaf.

Jane Bassett Spilman, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, cited Ms. Zinser's "comprehensive administrative skills and breadth of experience and expertise in higher education" as reasons for her selection. "She is a humanitarian with a deep sense of commitment and caring -- qualities which are essential at a special institution such as Gallaudet," Ms. Spilman said.

Gallaudet, which has 2,200 students, receives most of its operating funds from the federal government.

The protesters twice marched to the White House and the Capitol and blocked the gates of the Gallaudet campus, forcing the university to shut down. They carried signs that said "Why the hell can't a deaf president be given a chance?," chanted "Deaf president now," and used sign language to communicate their message.

The demonstrators -- whose numbers grew to more than 2,000 as students were joined by alumni, members of the deaf community, and Gallaudet faculty and staff members -- said they would continue to protest until the Gallaudet administration agreed to their demands:

• That the board appoint as president one of the two deaf finalists for the job.

• That the chairwoman, Ms. Spilman, be replaced by a deaf person.

• That the board change its bylaws to require that a majority of its members be deaf persons.

• That students, staff members, and faculty members not be subject to any reprisals as a result of their support for the protest.

In choosing Ms. Zinser, the board angered students, faculty members, staff members, and alumni who felt that the selection of a hearing president represented continued oppression of the deaf and a missed opportunity for the world's only university for the deaf to proved that a deaf person was capable of handling positions of responsibility.

Said Bonnie Gracer, a Gallaudet graduate student: "The whole thing is a matter of can versus can't. Deaf people are told you can't, you can't, you can't. And what are they doing here? They're affirming that deaf can't."

The board's vote for Ms. Zinser also went against the advice of the ranking members of the U.S. Senate subcommittee charged with overseeing Gallaudet. The university this year received $61.2-million -- about 80 percent of its operating budget -- from the federal government.

In a letter dated February 29, Sen. Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, chairman of the Senate's Labor and Human Resources Subcommittee on the Handicapped, and Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., Republican of Connecticut, the ranking minority member, told Gallaudet's presidential search committee that: "The selection of a highly qualified deaf individual to the presidency would certainly be a powerful reaffirmation of Gallaudet's commitment to the principle of affirmative action."

In the House of Representatives, Rep. Major R. Owens, Democrat of New York, chairman of the Education and Labor Subcommittee on Select Education, said his panel would convene an emergency hearing this week to examine the issues raised by the protesters.

The demonstrators also received support from Rep. David E. Bonior, a Michigan Democrat who is one of the three Congressionally appointed trustees of Gallaudet. Mr. Bonior said he supported the election of a deaf president and had told Ms. Zinser in a private meeting that "she shouldn't discount the option of resignation," his press secretary said.

Mr. Bonior also was said to have told Ms. Zinser that he feared that her appointment could cause cuts in federal financing at Gallaudet, noting that about 25 members of Congress had contacted him to register their support for a deaf president.

Meeting With Student Leaders

Representative Bonior and his two fellow trustees, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, and Rep. Steve Gunderson, Republican of Wisconsin, were away from Washington and did not vote in the election of Ms. Zinser.

Ms. Zinser, who had hoped to finish the spring semester at the University of North Carolina, came to Washington on the fourth day of the protests because she said the situation required that she assume the presidency immediately.

She met with four student leaders shortly after arriving in the capital, to tell them she was prepared to offer students, faculty members, and staff members seats on an advisory panel that would help her learn about Gallaudet and about deaf culture.

"I want to put in place a structure that will allow me consistent and frequent exchange with students and faculty and staff at the university to educate me about what I need to know in order to be effective as president of Gallaudet University," she said.

She also said she had begun learning sign language.

The student protest leaders responded by reasserting their four demands. "We're not in the process of a negotiation," reported Jerry Covell, a protest leader.

At a press conference called to mark Ms. Zinser's arrival, Ms. Spilman, the trustee chairwoman, defended the decision by the majority of the trustees to stick with Ms. Zinser in spite of the negative reaction to her election on the campus, on Capitol Hill, and from the national deaf community.

Ms. Spilman praised Ms. Zinser's academic credentials and experience as a university administrator.

Ms. Zinser has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, a master's in nursing from the University of California at San Francisco, and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. She also has a master's in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ms. Zinser, who has been vice-chancellor at Greensboro for five years, was nominated for the Gallaudet presidency by the Office of Women's Concerns of the American Council on Education.

Faculty Members Back Students

Mr. Jordan and Mr. Corson, the two deaf finalists for the presidency, last week called upon students to cooperate with Ms. Zinser.

But late Wednesday afternoon, Gallaudet's faculty senate voted 136 to 11 to support the students' demands. The senate also elected three professors to act as liaisons with the group planning the demonstrations.

In February, a large majority of the faculty senate supported Ms. Zinser's candidacy for the presidency. Neil Reynolds, the senate's chairman, said he attributed the members' change of heart about Ms. Zinser to the change in climate on campus.

"It was felt that her experience and expertise outweighed the deafness issue at that time. The mood of the campus is now clearly for a deaf person," said Mr. Reynolds.

"It appears to me that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any hearing candidate to function under these circumstances."

The senate also voted in favor of a separate resolution calling for the ouster of Ms. Spilman from the board of trustees. The resolution accused Ms. Spilman of having a conflict of interest that allegedly had caused her to "lure away" Gallaudet's last president, Jerry C. Lee, to serve as a vice-president of Bassett Furniture Industries, Inc., of Bassett, Va. Ms. Spilman's husband is president of the company.

The resolution also included a charge that a reported statement by Ms. Spilman that "deaf people are not ready to function in the hearing world" showed an intolerable insensitivity to the concerns of the deaf.

Ms. Spilman denied both charges and said she would step down only if the board requested her resignation.

She said she did not recall the statement attributed to her and said she might have misspoken. As for the conflict-of-interest charge, she said Mr. Lee had told the board upon his 1984 appointment to the presidency that he wanted to work in the business sector after serving Gallaudet for three to five years -- a promise he kept.

Mr. Reynolds said support among the faculty was particularly strong for the protesters' demand the Board of Trustees be reconstituted so that more than half of the members would be deaf. Professors, he said, feel that the board -- which is self appointed with the exception of the three Congressional seats -- has been insensitive to the concerns of the deaf.

Ms. Spilman said the board "will constantly seek to find both deaf and hearing individuals who can make a contribution to the Board of Trustees and Gallaudet."

Then, early Friday morning, Ms. Zinser resigned.