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A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University

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A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University Perforating Tympanic Walls: A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University Paige Elizabeth Franklin Bachelors, Psychology, May 1991, Gallaudet University Masters, Deaf Education, May 1995 Gallaudet University Masters, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, December 1999, American University Masters, English Language and Literature, December 2005, University of Maryland A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 31, 2010 Dissertation directed by Daniel Moshenberg Associate Professor of English The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Paige Elizabeth Franklin has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of December 3, 2009. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. Perforating Tympanic Walls: A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University Paige Elizabeth Franklin Dissertation Research Committee: Daniel Moshenberg, Associate Professor of English, Dissertation Director Robert McRuer, Professor of English, Committee Member Tonya M Stremlau, Professor of English at Gallaudet University, Committee Member ii Copyright 2010 by Paige Elizabeth Franklin All rights reserved iii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my dissertation committee, Dan Moshenberg (chair), Robert (Bob) McRuer, and Tonya Stremlau, for patiently working with me through my writing process. I am also grateful to James J Mahshie for agreeing to serve as the fourth reader and on the defense team. Not only Dan, a women studies and activism studies scholar, cheered me through (Yay! You go!), he also wrote many many emails with praises for each chapter (all six of them) and suggested how I could shape my arguments. Bob, a disability studies scholar and theorist, supplemented to Dan's suggestions with his own, and encouraged persistence. Tonya, being the rhetoric and composition as well as deaf studies and disability studies scholar, suggested how I could shape my chapters and how I could shape my arguments by pointing out the blind spots in my discussions. My chapters began as, as Dan described, "a great story!" and lacked substantial discussion; and, Bob encouraged making each chapter distinct from each other in that they do not overlap each other. That was in summer 2007, and over time, after a few rewrites and revisions, the chapters approach the historical developments leading to the two uprisings at Gallaudet University. For that, I am grateful. This is a work in progress, and it will change over time as my thinking evolve. I am open to feedback and advice. The mistakes, errors, gaps in thinking, less than stellar analysis, and mistakes are all mine, alone, not my committee's. Dan, Bob, and Tonya all acted as guides and mentors in my writing process, but the responsibility for this dissertation is solely mine. Blame only me. I am also grateful to the professors of English at the George Washington University who had prepared me for this point. They include Bob, whose two theory courses were iv especially useful in my dissertation, Ann Romines, then-director of graduate studies who believed in my potential, Christopher Sten, Gayle Wald, Marshall Alcorn, Meta DuEwa Jones, and Holly Dugan. Each and every faculty member was a strong role model to me in thinking, writing, and talking academically about the topic at hand. I am also grateful to my fellow graduate students for their contributions to the class discussions, as they gave me a lot to think about. Thank you. I am also grateful to the department of English at Gallaudet for its strong support as I juggled my professional responsibilities as well as my scholarly ones. It was considerate in scheduling my courses so that I could get to my graduate classes in time. It also was considerate in giving me one-course release time each semester, unpaid leave in fall 2006, and sabbatical in spring 2009 to concentrate on my graduate and dissertation work. It also saw to it that I did not get distracted by committee work and had me commit my time only to teaching and PhD studies. Thank you, David Pancost (chair, 2004-2007) and Jane Nickerson (chair 2007-present) for seeing me through. Also, thank you, my colleagues in the department for your cheerful encouragement and patience. Informing my dissertation are two uprisings at Gallaudet, the 1988 Deaf President Now Protest and the 2006 Unity for Gallaudet Protest (also known as Better President Now). I was one of the activists for the first uprising, but not the second. For the second, I followed closely on line the blog maintained by Elisa Abenchuchan, the Faculty Staff Students Alumni website (now defunct), the Gallaudet Office of Public Relations, GallyNet-L, and the now-defunct website that the staff of President-Designate Fernandes maintained, the blog maintained by Ricky Taylor, Vlogs maintained by Joey Baer, Jesse Thomas, and Amy Cohen Efron. I am especially grateful for the thought provoking, v perceptive and incisive discussion of the second protest by contributors -- especially those by Allison (Kaftan) Polk to DeafDC blog. Finally the bravery and tenacity of the first and especially the second protest leaders and activists were awesome. The second protest lasted a lot longer than the first protest – a total of two weeks in May 2006 and four weeks in October 2006 – due to the complexity of the protest, which this dissertation explores. It was through the process of thinking, talking, and writing about the second protest that I have come to deeply appreciate the awesome task of the protest to justify the violence it rendered. I also appreciate the difficult and daunting task of opposing the protest, as Shirley Myer Shultz did, and the opposition gave me the balanced I needed for my discussion. The second protest broke hearts for everyone, those who believed in the protest and those who wanted to accept the appointment of Fernandes. Without their contributions, this dissertation would not have been possible. Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my grandmother, Lucille (Lu) Arzie Franklin, for playing such a huge role in supporting and encouraging me to complete the dissertation despite my personal challenges. To her my dissertation is dedicated. vi Abstract of Dissertation Perforating Tympanic Walls: A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University This dissertation explores the historical developments and progressions that led up to the uprisings at Gallaudet University. The uprisings, the 1988 Deaf President Now and the 2006 Unity for Gallaudet (also known as Better President Now) protests, were not accidental nor were they even isolated from the overall history of deaf education, educational and advancement opportunities for people who are deaf, access to languages (English and American Sign Language), recognition and validation for the Deaf Community and its culture and language as opposed to deafness as pathological, and the structure of the university that affirmed or denied those histories. In other words, the architecture (in more senses than simply blueprints of buildings) of the curriculum, policies, faculty, staff, and student body, has been informed by and has informed the larger discourses about deafness, deaf education, and policy-making process. The uprisings aimed to challenge those discourses with the goal of achieving humanity for people who are deaf, educated, and skilled, and with the goal of overthrowing the structure and its mechanism for (re)producing the discourses. Chapter 1, “Introducing the Perforator,” introduces and explains the dissertation, its aims, and its underlying theory. With Michel Foucault's "The Subject and Power" essay as lens, chapter 2, “Policing and Hooping Deaf Bodies: Controlling and containing all things quintessentially deaf,” explores the dynamics of power relations between all stakeholders, including the administration, students, faculty, staff, and the architecture of the university, and how they feed or take away from the relations, a sort of a confluence of the web, and how it vii has come to the relations as they are set up. With Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth as lens, chapter 3, “Historicizing the Rage,” explores the dynamics of the history of Deaf Education and its effects on the articulation of structuring the institution. It also explores the resistance to such structuring – in which the rage stemmed in during the protests. The rage is a way, a means, of, to borrow Homi K Bhabha's term, (re)enunciating the future writings of the deaf history that would be defined in more a positive, celebratory tone. With Jacque Derrida's "Plato's Pharmakon" as lens, chapter 4, “Text & Textuality of Jordan & Fernandes,” explores the highly fluid representation of I. King Jordan, the first Deaf president of the university and of Jane K. Fernandes, the succeeding president-designate. They had come to mean different things for different groups of people. The activists, however, had perceived them as a part of the larger system that had to be destroyed in order to create a new system. Despite the attempts Fernandes made to pave way for a new system, her textuality (meaning in terms of representation) was so overpowering that the attempts and promises went with the wind. With Foucault's "Truth and Power" essay as lens, chapter 5, “What Truth? A Look at the (dis)continuity in discourse and knowledge,” explores the language of the Mission Statement, Statement of Communication, and the undergraduate general education requirements, and how they become a web of discourse informed and informing the philosophy and practice of deaf education, which in turn informs the development of deaf history. With Minh-ha Trinh's "Not You/Like You: Postcolonial Women and the Interlocking Questions of Identity and Difference" as lens, chapter 6, “I am.
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