FLASH: Davila declares full language status of ASL

FLASH: Davila declares full language status of ASL

Major Breakthrough Today in Deaf Culture Renaissance Movement at Gallaudet University--

Gallaudet President Robert R. Davila issued a video blog today in which he makes explicit reference to American Sign Language as being a bona fide and fully recognized language, declaring that ASL has achieved "full language status."

In his video blog, President Davila interviewed Deaf actress Tami Lee Santimyer who is appearing tonight (and also other dates through April 14, 2007) in Gil Eastman's play "Sign Me Alice" at Gallaudet. After Ms. Santimyer spoke about Gil Eastman's background, she referred to ASL as being the "best language to use in the education of deaf people," whereupon President Davila responded:

QUOTE

That’s really wonderful. You’ve given us a look at the history of the deaf community. It’s very important to name some people who had important roles in promoting ASL to full language status. I think that’s wonderful. I don’t mind telling you that I’m proud of the fact that I was here at Gallaudet as a student when Gil Eastman first came here as a student from Connecticut. We became good friends and were good friends throughout his life.

UNQUOTE

The statement on the video blog represents a signal moment in the history of the Deaf, giving momentum to the current Deaf culture renaissance movement which is sweeping through Gallaudet University and the North American Deaf community.

Gallaudet was established by Edward Gallaudet and Sophia Fowler Gallaudet in 1864 (under the sponsorship of the United States Federal Government) for the purposes of educating Deaf people in their natural language, with full respect granted to the equal cultural status that Deaf people achieved since the establishment of the famous school for the Deaf in Paris in the 1760's.

Edward Gallaudet had accepted the invitation from Amos Kendall to establish the Columbia Institution for the Deaf in 1857, in order to achieve his dream of creating a school system for the Deaf which was national in scope. Edward Gallaudet, though hearing, grew up in Hartford, Connecticut and became a native speaker of American Sign Language, having learned it from his Deaf mother, Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, and also his hearing father Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, but especially also from Laurent Clerc who was a graduate of the school for the Deaf in Paris.

Edward Gallaudet achieved his dream, with graduates of Gallaudet (Columbia) going on to participate in the founding of schools for the Deaf all over the United States, which, though they were state sponsored, became part of a network of schools affiliated with federally funded Gallaudet College (later Gallaudet University), which served as being the flagship institution of the federal-state network.

Edward Miner Gallaudet, co-founder of Gallaudet University

Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, co-founder of Gallaudet University

As the recent documentary "Through Deaf Eyes" explains, this pro-Deaf culture educational movement suffered a severe setback with the advent of a conference in 1880 in Milan, Italy, where mostly European educators pushed through an oralist philosophy of deaf education that denied Deaf people the opportunity to be educated in their native sign languages. A rising tide of xenophobia in the United States led to the oralist philosophy taking over the administration of schools for the Deaf all over the country, with, as an interviewee on "Through Deaf Eyes" explains, deaf education entering a dark age.

The dark-age mentality trickled upwards to Gallaudet College after the death of Edward Miner Gallaudet in 1917, with professors resorting to ineffective artificial systems of communication which placed an undue and heavy reliance on lip reading, using residual hearing, and attempting to artificially graft English syntax onto ASL signs. The so-called "Simultaneous Communication method" ("SimCom") became the official communication policy of Gallaudet. In spite of this trend, American Sign Language still thrived on the campus in various venues, including some classes taught by deaf professors.

The Simultaneous "Method" became discredited through the pioneering work of linguist William Stokoe, who was an English professor at Gallaudet from 1955 to 1971, then the director of the Linguistics Research Lab, also at Gallaudet, from 1970 through 1984. His work led to a Deaf culture renaissance movement which called for (and still today calls for) the restoral of Gallaudet's traditional mission of ASL education and ASL-English bilingualism.


"Bill Stokoe is the father of linguistics in the field of American Sign Language. If it weren't for him, we'd still be in the Dark Ages."--Gil Eastman


In 1988 the Deaf culture renaissance movement spawned a protest which came to be called "Deaf President Now." For the first time in Gallaudet's 124-year history, a deaf person was chosen to be president. Unfortunately, the person chosen to be the first deaf president, Irving King Jordan, Jr, was a covert oral supremacist who proceeded, as president of Gallaudet, to offer praise toward ASL and Deaf culture only as lip service and window dressing, while the actual effects of his policies would serve to undermine all the progress that culturally Deaf people had achieved since the 1760's.

In 2005 and 2006, Jordan rigged the presidential selection process that named his successor, and the Deaf community found it necessary to exercise their moral veto power over the Gallaudet Board of Trustees and reject the decision. Instead of Jane Fernandes (who was Jordan's choice), the Deaf community succeeded in having a different person chosen as the Ninth President of Gallaudet, Dr. Robert R. Davila, who has been appointed for a short 18-to-24 month tenure while a search is conducted for the Tenth President.

President Davila's video blog today represents the official end of the era of lip service and window dressing of his predecessor, Irving King Jordan.

Robert R. Davila, 9th President of Gallaudet University

VIDEO BLOG TRANSCRIPT: 

Click HERE to see the transcript

VIDEO BLOG:

http://pr.gallaudet.edu/video/?vid=23

PAST VIDEO BLOGS: http://www.gallaudet.edu/x3603.xml

[Link to vlog transcript added, 11/26/2024; Edits: 7/30/2013]