At the Tent City, Time To Pull Up Stakes
Gallaudet's Protesters Pack It In

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 14, 2006

The last night in Gallaudet's tent city begins quietly, as the sun sets and thunder clouds loom. Later, the rain comes.

By yesterday morning, patches of yellow, flattened grass mark the spots in the encampment where tents have already been pulled up.

There's a vague scent of musty sleeping bags, old gym shoes and sweat. Trash cans are overflowing with pizza boxes, half-eaten Subway sandwiches. The storms Friday night flattened most of the posterboard signs, and the ink runs onto the sidewalk. Flies are buzzing around a dog bowl with bloated, soggy kibbles floating in rainwater.

Only 24 hours before, the scene's very different. Three dozen pizzas are arriving from Domino's and the catering coordinator is peeling fives and tens out of a blue cardboard cash box, counting them off for the delivery guy. The ongoing student protest over the new president at the nation's most prominent college for the deaf does not run on idealism alone.

Under the pop-up canopy next to the canteen tent and six-foot- long barbecue grill, sales of protest T-shirts and other memorabilia are brisk. "Visit Tent City, Gallaudet. Meet courageous people . . . topple empires!" say the postcards. The stack of T-shirts has dwindled to just size smalls.

Protest organizers are signing and text-messaging details about the rally that night, whether there will be another meeting with representatives of the board of trustees, signs of movement on their demands.

"We've made some good points and they're starting to see that what we have to say is true," says Sean Moore, a biology major and sixth-generation deaf person who received his degree earlier in the day. He has been involved since the beginning of the protests almost two weeks ago, trying to persuade the Gallaudet University board to reconsider its choice of a new president.

After the school announced May 1 that Provost Jane K. Fernandes would be its next president, a few students spent that night on the pavement, their sleeping bags and blankets littering the Florida Avenue entrance to the Northeast Washington campus.

The next night, after stewing over a few beers in a local bar, junior Jesse Thomas and a friend pitched two tents on the grassy lawn behind the sign that proclaims: Gallaudet University, Founded 1864. Within days, they were joined by more than 70 others, and the tent city took root.

With placards and stakes, the protesters have marked their encampment with neatly lettered signs: "Welcome to the Peaceful Tent City."

"Blogging tent," says the sign outside the tent with the orange extension cord running into Fowler Hall. (The university shut the power off at first, then gave up after protesters found another outlet.) "Mayor Lives Here. Please feel free to bother me" says the sign outside the tent of sophomore Chris Corrigan, 19, the self-appointed leader of the camp.

"Deaf Diver's Club: Tent Numbero Uno" says the sign beside Thomas's tent. A glen plaid fedora sits outside the flap of his tent, along with a neon green Frisbee. Outside "Pat's Shag Shack" a woman sits in a lawn chair, sunning herself.

A week into the protests, undergraduates finished their exams and had to vacate the dorms. The tent city grew a bit.

At the end of this week, guests flowed onto campus in anticipation of Friday's commencement. On graduation day, tent- city protesters worked their way through the crowds, shoving bright purple fliers into the hands of passersby:

"83 percent of undergraduate students and over 60 percent of graduate students, faculty and staff voted that Dr. Jane K. Fernandes was 'not acceptable' as president of Gallaudet University. DOESN'T OUR VOICE COUNT?"

The high-water mark of protest on this campus is legendary now, 1988's Deaf President Now movement, in which students rejected a new president who was not deaf. This time, the issues aren't so clear. Fernandes is deaf. Her critics are objecting to the search process and to her autocratic management style. School representatives, including Fernandes, have met with them almost every day since the the protests began. But her answers and apologies haven't appeased them.

After Friday's graduation ceremony, the protesters cheer with waving arms and shout in sign language as one of the student leaders exhorts: "Had they not picked her, do you think we'd be this unified?" There's talk of setting up a National Tent City Day, going to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress, to carry on the protest as long as it takes. But then afterward, there's this. Groups huddle to address the question: What about tomorrow? The campus is emptying out, seniors have to leave the dorms, and summer is coming. There are jobs and internships to go to. Students will want to go home.

Graduate student Julie Guberman is sitting on the curb, making her final entries to her blog. Nearby, senior Johanna Karmgard is slowly folding damp polar-fleece shirts and blankets, pulling up the pole of her tent. It collapses on her interpersonal communications textbook, along with a bottle of Sutter Home white zinfandel. A flip-flop seems to have lost its mate. She is going back to Sweden for the summer but takes heart in all of the attention the protest has received.

"We have a lot of support from other deaf people in the whole United States," she says. "They will have tent city again in August."

Senior Aaron Brock, however, is not so sure.

"I don't think they'll ever change the decision about the president," he said, loading his garbage into a plastic locker and lifting it into the back of his Honda CR-V. "But I do believe Jane will do a better job than she would have if we hadn't done this."

Corrigan, the self-professed mayor, has a few more words of encouragement to offer the dozen protesters packing up yesterday afternoon.

"Our demands haven't been met, obviously," he says. "They're very firm on the idea of keeping Jane as president and not reopening the search. But we have time and principle on our side."

He stuffs a pile of signs into a large plastic trash bag. But there's one more being made that they want to leave on the grounds: "We're coming back."

The nearby administration building is dark and there's nobody around to see it.

©2006 The Washington Post Company