|
1000 BC
Hebrew
law provides that the Deaf have limited rights to property and
marriage. These laws
protects deaf people from being cursed by others but prevents
the deaf from participating fully
in
rituals of the Temple.
355 BC
Aristotle says "Those who are born deaf all become senseless and
incapable of reason.”
360 BC
Plato’s
Cratylus, in this,
Socrates mentions the use of signs by
the deaf. Socrates discusses
innate
intelligence, persons born perfect but without speech gives no
sign of intelligence so
therefore Deaf people are incapable of language and ideas.
99-55 BC
Lucretius, a Latin Poet who wrote only one poem. In his poem, he
wrote “To Instruct the deaf,
no art
can ever reach, no care to improve them, and no wisdom teach.”
His one work was titled
De
rerum natura.
77 AD
Pliny
the Elder publishes his Natural History. He mentions
Quintus Pedius, the son of a
Roman
Consul. Quintus was a very talented artist who happened to be
Deaf. In order to be an
artist,
he had to first receive permission from Caesar Augustus.
354-430 AD
St.
Augustine wrote that the sins of the parents are visited upon
the children. Afflicted children
are a
sign of God’s anger and punishment. Augustine believed that
faith cometh by hearing
and
that deafness is a hindrance to faith. However, he believed that
Deaf people can learn and
thus
are able to receive faith and salvation. Augustine refers to
bodily movements, signs, and
gestures, and believed that these modes were capable of
transmitting thought and belief. He
implies
that it is equal to spoken language in terms of reaching the
soul. De quantitate animae
liber
unus.
529 AD
Corupus Iurus Civilis or the Justinian Code, developed
during the reign of Emperor Justinian,
was a
result of Emperor Justinian's desire that existing Roman law be
collected into a simple
and
clear system of laws or "code." The code
denied deaf people the ability to hold and control
property, make contracts, or write a valid will.
1521
Rudolf Agricola, a Dutch humanist, believed that the Deaf could
communicate via writing. He
advocated the theory that the ability of speech was seperate
from the ability of thought. He
wrote
De Inventione Dialectica.
1501-1576
ca.
Girolamo
Cardano was the first physician to recognize the ability of the
Deaf to Reason and
the
first to challenge Aristotle's belief that hearing was a
requirement for understanding.
1575
Lasso,
a Spanish lawyer, argues that those who learn to speak are no
longer dumb and
therefore have a right to primogeniture (inheritance).
1614-1684
John Bulwer was a British Physician who studied gestures and
published Philocopus, also
known
as the Deaf and Dumbe Man’s Friend in 1648 and
Chirologia, also known as the
Naturall Language of the Hand in 1644. These were the first
English books on deaf education
and
language. These books showed the use of manual signs but did not
refer directly to the
sign
language of the Deaf. Bulwer also advocated the establishment of
a school for the Deaf.
1680
George
Dalgarno, a Scottish Tutor, taught students to lipread, speak,
and fingerspell. He
published conclusions about the education of the deaf in
Didascalocophus, also known as the
Deaf
and Dumb Man’s Tutor which supported the use of
fingerspelling and gestures in the
education of Deaf people.
18th
Century
Enlightenment Era philosophers Locke, Rousseau, Condillac debate
the nature of language,
the
origin of language and thought, and signs. The Enlightenment Era
was a period of spiritual
awakening and intellectual movement.
1591
Alberti, a German physician, published the first book of any
kind specifically regarding
deafness. Discourse on Deafness and Speechlessness. He
stated that hearing and speech
were
separate functions. Alberti believed that Deaf people were
rational, capable of thought,
even
though they lacked speech. He showed that the Deaf can read
lips, understand speech,
and read,
without the ability to hear.
1620
Earliest records of Deaf Education occurs in Spain. Melchor de Yebra and
Juan
Pablo de
Bonet
are prominent during this era. De Yebra was familiar
with the hand alphabet used by
monks sworn to vows of silence.
He published those handshapes and publicized its use for
for religious purposes among
deaf people to promote understanding of spiritual matters. Bonet
reproduced de Yebra’s work in 1620
entitled Simplification of the Letters of the Alphabet and
Method of
Teaching Deaf Mutes to Speak. He supported oralism
but used finger
spelling to
teach speech and literacy.
He used this methodology so the deaf could
be integrated with
hearing society.
1755
Samuel Heinicke establishes the first oral school for the deaf in Germany.
1760
Abbe Charles Michel de l'Epee (1712-1789) establishes the
Royal
Institution of Deaf and
Mutes
in Paris. L'Epee supported the school at his own expense until
his death. After his
death,
the government began to support the school. His successor was
the Abbe Roch
Concurrou (Curcurran) Sicard (1742-1822). It was Sicard who
brought Laurent Clerc and Jean
Massieu
to London where they met Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. The Royal
Institution was the
first
free school for the deaf in the world.
1760
Thomas Braidwood founded the first British Academy for the deaf.
1776
Abbe de
l’Eppe publishes “Instruction of deaf and dumb by means of
methodical signs.”
1812
Braidwood School is founded in the United States by John Braidwood
the grandson of the
founder
of Braidwood Academy. His attempt failed and he moved on to
establish a small
school
at the Cobbs planation where he taught the Bolling children.
This school closed in
1816.
1817
American School
for the Deaf is
founded by Mason Cogswell, Thomas H. Gallaudet, and
Laurent Clerc.
1818
The New
York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb is
founded.
1820
Pennsylvania School for the Deaf is founded.
1823
Kentucky
School for the Deaf, the first school supported by the state,
opens.
1830
Thomas H. Gallaudet
resigns as principal of American School for the Deaf.
1831
Dr. Samuel Howe
is the first director for the first school for the blind in the United
States which
later became known as
the Perkins School for the Blind. He later taught Laura Bridgman and
she was the inspiration for
Helen Keller.
1831
Alice Cogswell dies 13 days after her father dies in December.
She was 25 years old.
1837
In St.
Louis, Missouri, St. Joseph's, the first Catholic school for the deaf,
opens.
1839
The
Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind opens. It is the first
school to integrate deaf and
blind
students.
1846
American
Annals of the Deaf (AAD)
begins publication in Hartford at American School for the
Deaf.
1847
American
Annals of the Deaf first proposes the idea of higher education for the
deaf.
1851
On
September 10, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet dies.
1853
New England
Association of the Deaf is established at
Montpelier,
Vermont.
1854
AAD features an article, “The National College for Mutes” by
John Carlin. The first honorary
degree
(and also first degree of any kind awarded by Gallaudet College)
was granted to him in
1864.
1855
John J. Flournoy first floats the idea of an independent deaf
state sparking a debate in the deaf
community.
1856
Amos Kendall donates 2 acres of land and a house to found a school for the
deaf, dumb,
and the blind.
1857
On June
13, Kendall
School is incorporated as the Columbia Institution for the
Instruction of
the Deaf and
Dumb and the Blind on land owned
by Postmaster General, Amos Kendall.
1861
School
buildings are used by Civil War soldiers as a hospital for sick
soldiers. The occupiers
are the Pennsylvania regiment of troops under Colonel Samuel Black.
1864
The
Enabling
Act is signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The college was previously
established as
Kendall School in 1857 with Edward Miner Gallaudet as its superintendent. On
April 8,
1864, the 38th congress of the United States of America, authorizes the
Columbia
Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, to
confer degrees in liberal arts and sciences
that are usually
conferred in colleges. Edward M. Gallaudet became the first president
and
continued
until 1910. In September, the CIDDB was named the National Deaf Mute College.
1864
On September 8,
the college has a faculty of 5 and a student body of 13
including 8
preparatory students and 5
collegiate students. The five collegiate were Melville Ballard (1866),
James
Cross Jr., James H. Logan, John B. Hotchkiss, and Joseph
Parkinson. (1869). The
faculty were: Edward M. Gallaudet, Richard Storrs, Rev.
Lewellyn Pratt, James W. Patterson,
and Peter Baumgras. Instruction
begins.
1865
The
Empire State Association
of the Deaf is formed. It is the first state association of the
Deaf.
1866
Melville
Ballard is the first graduate of the college.
1866
Frederick Law Olmsted presents
plan for buildings and grounds of
the National Deaf Mute
College.
1867
Lexington
School opens in New York City, becoming the first pure oral school in the
country.
Clarke School soon follows in Northampton, MA.
1869
North Carolina becomes the first state to provide an institution for the
education of black deaf
children.
The school is named
the Governor
Morehead
School.
1869
The first regular
class graduates. Amos Kendall dies.
1870
Directors, with five thousand dollars on hand, purchase 81 acres of adjoining
property from
Amos Kendall’s estate for $85,000
1871
Chapel
Hall completes construction. President Grant dedicates the
building. Mortgage on
Kendall Green
is paid off with seventy thousand dollars from
Congress.
1873
George
Wallis publishes his book; “Language of Touch – a narrative
illustrating the instruction
of the Blind and Deaf Mute” based
on a deafblind woman called Mary Bradley.
1874
Gallaudet
purchases the personal library of Charles Baker of England for the
college, now part
of the Archives’ Baker Collection of rare
books related to the Deaf.
1875
The Deaf
Mutes’ Journal is established. It continues operation as a
popular newspaper of the
Deaf until 1951.
DMJ is renamed the New York Journal
in the 1930s. Edwin Hodgson was its
editor for 53 years and
later succeeded by Thomas F. Fox.
1876
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. He also uses his influence to implement the
practice of ‘oralism’, banning the use
of sign language in 1880 at the Milan conference – thus
restricting communication for
the deafblind.
1876
Henry W. Syle and AW Mann are first Deaf persons to be ordained
clergymen in the United
States.
1877
Sophia
Fowler Gallaudet dies. She was born in 1798 and entered ASD at
the age of 19 with
her older sister and a cousin. She married in
1821 to Thomas H. Gallaudet. She had 8 children
with
Gallaudet and
became the Kendall School's first matron when her son, Edward was
invited to
be the superintendent of the Columbia Institution. In 1918, the
first women’s
dormitory on campus was named in her memory.
1880
The
National Association
of the Deaf is
established in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first president is
Robert P.
McGregor of
Ohio,
who formed the local committee for the first
convention. The
conference addresses issues of social change, Deaf education,
Deaf Marriage, rights,
privileges, legislation, support of
Gallaudet
College,
and the combined system.
1880
International Congress
of Educators of the Deaf meets for the
Milan Conference. Gallaudet is
in attendance.
James
Denison
is the only deaf person there out of 16 attendees. The
conference overwhelmingly supports oralism, with the American delegation
and Richard Elliot
the
sole opponents to the decision.
1881
Episcopal
Conference of Church Workers Among the Deaf is established. They
met to
exchange
ideas and explore ways of improving the teaching of religion to the
deaf.
1881
Construction of the new gymnasium (Ole Jim) is
completed. The gym has the nation's first
indoor swimming pool.
Congress funded the construction because Edward M. Gallaudet told
Congress that physical education and
a pool were needed after
4 drownings elsewhere.
1883
Gallaudet
football is officially organized with John B. Hotchkiss as coach.
The team record is
2-0.
The first loss came in 1888 to Navy.
1883
Bell reads Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the
Human Race at the American
Academy of Sciences in New Haven, CT
and to the Conference of Principals of American
Schools for the
Deaf in 1884. Bell is concerned about intermarriage amongst the deaf and
states that they shouldn’t marry because this would isolate the deaf
from hearing society and
encourage births of deaf children.
This sparked debate for prohibition of marriage amongst the
deaf.
1886
Construction of Dawes House
is completed. Dawes House was designed and planned by Deaf
architect Olof Hanson, ’86.
1886
First
women admitted to Gallaudet College on conditional basis.
1886
William
Dummy Hoy begins his 15 year career in professional baseball. He
is widely attributed
to for developing the hand count for
umpires in baseball. He played for the Cincinnati Reds and
Washington Senators.
1887
Alexander G. Bell
establishes the Volta Bureau.
1889
The Gallaudet College Alumni Association
is
organized at the third convention of the National
Association
of the Deaf in
Washington
DC. Ballard is elected president, Hotchkiss Vice
President, Veditz secretary,
and Draper as Treasurer.
1889
Edward
Allan
Fay rebuts Bell’s Memoir upon a Variety of a Human Race,
and does
data
collection of deaf couples in the U.S. 4,471 responses
were received and
he found that while
the incidence of deaf children born were
greater, the numbers were not significant and not
equal to Bell’s panic.
Fay publishes Marriages of the Deaf.
1889
On June 26,
the statue of Thomas H. Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell,
sculpted by Daniel
Chester French,
is unveiled on Kendall
Green. Robert P. McGregor said: “With the appearance
of Thomas
Hopkins Gallaudet upon the scene, the history of the deaf of
this country begins.
Commanding the highest art of the sculptor,
his children of silence have placed his statue here
in
commemoration of his grand work in their behalf. It springs from
their hearts; it is worthy of
them; it is worthy of the sculptor
who created it…it is sublime in the nationality, the
universality of the sentiment which it symbolizes.”
1890
British Deaf Association is founded.
1890
Ennals Adams Jr. is the first African-American enrolled at Gallaudet College.
1892
The
OWLS
is formed. Before then, women newly admitted to the College were
only there on
an experimental basis. They were few and treated
as guests of the college. The men
considered them somewhat an
intrusion. They were left to themselves and not allowed to
actively participate in
extracurriculars at the college. They
could not attend Literary Society
meetings without a female
chaperone. The women decided to create a space for themselves,
to meet socially, provide support, and entertain themselves.
Thus they established the OWLS.
The alumnae was organized in
1910 and the first president of OWLS was Agatha Tiegel
Hanson.
1892
Alto
Lowman is the first woman to graduate. She earns a Bachelor of
Philosophy.
1892
On November 1,
the first issue of The Buff and Blue is published.
1893
Agatha Tiegel Hanson
is the first woman to graduate with a four year degree, a
Bachelor of
Arts.
She delivers the commencement speech.
1893
The Gallaudet College Alumni Association met in
Chicago and drafted a petition to rename the
National Deaf Mute
College as Gallaudet College in honor of Thomas H. Gallaudet.
The petition
was accepted and college
was renamed in 1894.
1894
The ground
is broken for the Volta Bureau’s building in northwest
Washington.
The funds were
derived from the Volta Prize that Alexander G. Bell won for
inventing the telephone. The Volta
Bureau's
purpose is to
become a center to house information on deafness.
1895
May Martin is hired as the first female faculty at Gallaudet College.
She departs the
position in
1900 to
marry Henry L. Stafford and dies in 1908.
1896
Women students establish a
basketball team. The first captain was Emma Kershner, ‘97
and
their record was 3-0. Men
students didn’t have a basketball team until 1905.
1900
Elizabeth Peet comes aboard as female faculty and Dean of Women where she
serves until
1950.
1901
The
National Fraternal Society
of the Deaf is formed as an insurance carrier for Deaf men.
They establish an auxiliary in 1910
for women and then admits women as full members in
1951.
1901
The
Kappa
Gamma fraternity is established at Gallaudet, the first
permanent fraternity on
campus. The
first Grand Rajah was John Fisher in 1901.
1901
The
first
electric hearing aid (radio aid) is developed.
1901
The first football game
is played between 2 deaf schools. The
Tennessee School for the Deaf
and the
North Carolina School for the Deaf. North Carolina won 51-0.
1903
African-American children are transferred from Columbia Institution to
the Maryland School for
Colored Deaf Mutes in
Baltimore.
1909
On
April 7, William Howard
Taft overturns Roosevelt’s earlier decision to prohibit deaf
people
from taking civil service exams for federal jobs.
1910
On February 6,
there is a big
fire in College Hall causing $25,000 in damages and losses.
Students,
faculty, and the fire department all worked hard to put out the
fire. Cold and the
water fighting the fire turned into ice,
encasing the entire building in ice.
1910
Percival Hall
is installed as president of Gallaudet College. He was a Harvard
graduate, in
1892 he
earned a B.A. degree and earned his Master's degree in 1893. He
first taught at the
New York School
for the Deaf then returned to Gallaudet in 1895 as a professor of
mathematics.
1910
Alice
Nicholson is installed as the first female Editor-in-Chief of
The Buff and Blue. The
next
female
Editor-in-Chief, Alice McVan, comes in 1927-28.
1912
Juliette
“Daisy” Gordon Low, a late deafened woman founded the Girl Scouts of
America in
Savannah, Georgia. In 1919, the Illinois School for the Deaf was the
first to start a scout troop
for girls.
1910-1920
The
teens are the beginning of the Sign Language preservation film series with
funds raised by
George Veditz
from 1907-1910. Veditz spearheaded this campaign to capture poems,
lectures, and stories
in sign language on film.
1914
Edwin
Nies is the first deaf person to earn a Doctor of Dental
Sciences. He earns the degree
from
the University of Pennsylvania.
1916-1920
Deaf
women begin an era of female leadership of state associations.
Annie
Lashbrook and
Alice Terry
are elected as Presidents of the Empire State Association of the
Deaf and the
California Association of the Deaf respectively. Olga
Anderson presides over the North Dakota
Association of the Deaf.
1917
September 26,
Dr. Edward M. Gallaudet dies.
1921
Earl C.
Hanson patents the first vacuum-tube hearing aid.
1923
The first
aerial view photo is taken of Kendall Green.
1923
Known as
Garlic Field, the football field is renamed
Hotchkiss field.
1924
The International
Committee of Silent Sports (CISS) iss founded on August 16 by E.
Rubens
Alcais of France and Antoine Dresse
of Belgium following the first International Games for the
Deaf which were held in Pershing
Stadium in Paris. The first games to take place in the United
States took place in 1965 in
Washington, DC.
1928
On January 13,
Nellie Zabel Willhite, believed to be the first deaf pilot in
the world, soloed.
1934
Gallaudet
had its first Homecoming football game. The first match was against
Shenandoah
College and
the game was won 7-6.
1943
On November 13, a
Liberty ship built by the California Shipbuilding Corporation,
commissioned
for World War II was named the Thomas Hopkins
Gallaudet. During the Lend-Lease agreement
with the Soviet
Union, it was named the Maikop. In 1951, it was sold to a
private corporation
and the
name was dropped.
1943
The
season of the
5 Iron Men. The team came into the tournament with a 4-11 record, going up
against schools like Washington College which had a perfect
season. The University of
Delaware and Gallaudet, the last place seeds
knocked out the other schools and went for the
title, which
Gallaudet won. The Gallaudet team played with only 5 men and no
alternates. They
had no substitutions and no foul outs. Holcomb, the
leading scorer only had 16 points,
whereas Roberts had 41 points
although he had only had 87 points for the entire season. They
went
from only 2 wins to winning 3 straight games and going home as
the All- Tournament
team.
1943 is also known as the year Gallaudet won the pennant.
The 5 ironmen were Hal
Weingold, Earl Roberts, Paul Baldridge,
Roy Holcomb, and Don Padden.
1945
The American Athletic Association
of the Deaf is established in Akron, Ohio at the end of the
World War II era where
the Deaf had established a colony in Akron, Ohio, working
for
Firestone and established themselves as workers with good
ethics and as good patriots.
1945
1945 is
the beginning of the Elstad Expansion Era for
Gallaudet
College. Buildings that were
erected
during this time included the Edward M. Gallaudet Library, Peet
Residence Hall, Hall
Memorial building, Mary Thornberry
Building, Gallaudet College (Elstad)
Auditorium, Ely
Residence Hall, Student Union Building,
and the Hughes gym. Elstad
also modernized the
administrative staff, established
a Registrar, nurse,
assistant for Dean of Women, full time
Librarian,
and a Dean of
students. He also put all staff under the Civil Service
Retirement plan.
1947
The
first deaf aviator to fly coast to coast is Rhulin A. Thomas of
Washington,
D.C.
1947
Hall
retires as president and Leonard M. Elstad is named as third
president of Gallaudet
College.
1947
The
Alpha Sigma Pi fraternity is established on campus as an open
alternative to the Kappa
Gamma fraternity.
ASP was founded by Taras
Denis, Archie Stack, and Andrew Vasnick.
Alpha Sigma Pi and
Kappa Gamma are both exclusive to Kendall Green. The first president
is
Archie Stack.
1950
Behind the ear hearing aid becomes available. Transistor hearing aid also appears on
the
market.
1953
Delta
Epsilon is founded on Kendall Green as the first Greek Letter
Sorority for deaf women.
The founders are Gloria Wojick, Ann Lister,
Joan Macaluso, and Eloise Bolen.
1954
Andrew
Foster is the first African American graduate of
Gallaudet
College.
He went on to found
31 schools and 2 centers
for the Deaf in Africa. He dies in 1987.
1954
The
Columbia Institution of the Deaf and Dumb is reorganized.
Gallaudet
College becomes the
parent institution, containing the college as
well as the Graduate Department and
Kendall
School.
1954
The
OWLS change
their name to Phi Kappa Zeta.
1956
Jewish
leaders in the Deaf community organize the National Congress of Jewish Deaf.
1957
Ida Wynette Gray Hampton
is the first African-American woman to graduate
from Gallaudet
College.
1958
President
Dwight Eisenhower signs PL 85-905 establishing Captioned Films
for the Deaf.
1960
Maxine Tull
Boatner completes Voice of the Deaf, a biography of Dr.
Edward M. Gallaudet.
1960
Stokoe
publishes his findings about sign language as a legit language.
His publication did not
attract
much attention until it is republished in 1965 with Casterline and
Croneberg as
Dictionary of ASL on Linguistic
Principles.
1960
The Junior National Association
of the Deaf is
established for deaf youths. They hosted their
first national convention at Gallaudet
in 1968.
1963
The Gallaudet
Basketball team plays in its first
international game against the
University of
Paris, played under Olympic rules. The match was
closely contested but Gallaudet lost.
1964
Robert
Weitbrecht, a deaf inventor, invents the acoustic coupler which
is similar to the
American textphone.
The coupler allows people to use typewriters to send
messages over the
telephone.
1964
President Lydon B. Johnson signs
Public Law 89-36, which provided for the establishment and
operation of a National Technical Institute for the Deaf, on
June 8, 1965. NTID, a federally
funded institution located on the campus of the
Rochester Institute of Technology, is the first
technological
college for deaf students in the world.
1964
The National Association
of the Deaf gives
women members the right to vote.
1966
Dr. N.
Judge King is the first African-American faculty hired at Gallaudet
College.
1966
Fred Schreiber becomes the first executive director of the
National Association of the Deaf.
1966
The
National Theater of the Deaf is established.
1967
The Laurent
Clerc Cultural Fund is presented to Gallaudet. The fund is created by
the alumni
Centennial Fund to promote projects and activities which
will lead to the cultural enrichment of
Deaf people.
1969
Edward
Merrill becomes fourth president of
Gallaudet
College.
1970
The
Model Secondary School for the Deaf begins
operation through PL 89-694 enacted in
1966, charged to provide
programs for deaf high schoolers.
1970
The first woman to earn a Ph.D is Nansie Sharpless at
Wayne
State
University.
1971
Jerald
Jordan is the first American elected president of CISS.
1972
The National
Association of the Deaf hosts
the first Miss Deaf America Pageant in
Miami
Beach,
Florida as part of the 42nd Biennial Convention of
the NAD. The first Miss Deaf America
is Ann Billington who was
also Miss Gallaudet.
1974
Donalda Ammons is the first female Editor-in-Chief of Tower Clock.
1975
On
November 29, President Ford signs PL94-142 into law. The
law guarantees
each disabled
child to receive a free, appropriate public
education.
1976
The first Deaf
women’s conference is held in Washington, DC at Gallaudet College.
1976
Line 21
is authorized by the Federal Communications Commission to be reserved for Closed
Captioning.
1977
The
Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf is established. The Alliance is for
Deaf Gays and Lesbians.
1979
The
American Association of Deaf and Blind, Inc forms.
1980
The National Association of the Deaf has its first female
president, Gertrude Galloway.
1980
Phyllis
Frelich wins a Tony for her performance in Children of a Lesser
God on Broadway.
1981
Jack
Gannon publishes Deaf
Heritage. Deaf Heritage is the first community history
book
published by a Deaf author.
1982
The
National Black Deaf
Advocates is founded.
1984
Intertribal Deaf Council is founded for Deaf people of Native
American descent.
1984
The Cochlear implant pioneers.
1985
Deaf Women
United is founded at the Deaf Women’s Conference prior to the World Games
of
the Deaf in
Los Angeles, California.
1986
Gallaudet becomes a University.
1986
Marlee Matlin wins an Oscar for her first ever performance. She
performs the role of Sarah in
Children of a Lesser God. Julianna
Fjeld wins an Emmy for Love is Never Silent.
1988
On
March 7, Deaf President Now! protestors barricaded the school.
The protestors sought to
overturn a March 6 decision of the Board of Trustees to appoint
Elisabeth Ann Zinser as
president of Gallaudet University. The protestors demanded a
Deaf president, the resignation of
Jane B.
Spilman as chair of the Board of Trustees, a majority of Deaf
people on the Board, and
no
reprisals against students who participated in the protest. The
protest included a
march to
the
Capitol. On
March 10, Zinser resigned and Spilman's resignation followed on the 13th. Phil
Bravin took
over as chair of the Board and
I. King
Jordan was appointed the president of
Gallaudet. The
student leaders
were Bridgette Bourne, Tim Rarus, Jerry
Covell, and Greg
Hlibok.
1989
Deaf Way I, an cultural arts festival of the Deaf community,
celebrating artists and cultures
from all over the world
is hosted at Gallaudet University.
1992
President George H.W. Bush signs the
Americans with Disabilities
Act into law, protecting the
right
of the disabled to education, employment, accessible buildings,
and other reasonable
accommodations.
1997
The
World Federation for the Deaf and Blind is founded.
2002
Gallaudet University hosts
Deaf Way II
2003
The
British Government recognizes British Sign Language as a
bona-fide language.
2005
Gallaudet football enjoys a 9-0 undefeated season under the
tutelage of new full-time coach Ed
Hottle.
|
