Tent City: Revival
[This is an extremely long post; my apologies! However, I believe it is a good, if lengthy, summarization of the events from October 2-11 regarding the protests at Gallaudet University.]
On Monday, October 2, "Tent City" was revived on the slope facing Florida Avenue NE, and protesters again gathered around the front gates. This time, media attention focused rapidly, rather than after a slow swell of events leading to a confrontation or new development. However, at the outset, not much was different from May; the same people, the same issues, the same location. What HAD changed was the effect of the various letters, directives, meetings, and speeches over the summer. The cumulative effect was to harden positions on both sides. No one seemed genuinely willing to admit any mistakes on their part. Because of this, in retrospect given the events of this week, what followed was a train wreck just waiting to happen.
While FSSA and other "official" groups still couldn't somehow manage to draft some sort of reasoning behind their decisions to protest, individuals here and there started to post in various forums their rationales for supporting or actively participating in the protest. The best I saw was the October 2 letter from Tara Holcomb. While her brief discussion of "oppression" was rather vague, didn't clarify anything, and was strongly based on emotion, her next two reasons started to coalesce a narrative together: the lack of shared governance, and Fernandes' failures as a leader. One point she made is one I've referenced ages ago, back in May, and one that quite a few people have mentioned, but that no one seems to get the media to sit up and notice: Gallaudet faculty passed a vote of no confidence in Fernandes. I have no idea if this is wholly the fault of the student leaders, or the media; I suspect a bit of both. In today's climate, the media in general has a tendency to be lazy when it comes to actual reporting. While the Washington Post, via Susan Kinzie, has done a fair job of covering the story, the media as a whole could have done better.
It is facts like these that needed to be sewed together into a narrative back in May, and so far no one has really done a good job of it. Problems with Fernandes while she was head of Pre-College Programs; problems with Fernandes while she was provost; the no-confidence votes taken when Fernandes first began as provost, and when she was selected as president; the curious unbalanced makeup of the pool of finalists; the unwillingness of the Board of Trustees, Jordan, and Fernandes to truly listen to the sentiments coming from the community; and most of all, the divisiveness that has erupted since. Taken together, they paint a picture that isn't a very pretty one.
But I digress; as of October 2, Tent City was back. Despite the rhetoric by the Board and Fernandes, the students via Noah Beckman in his role as SBG president stated "There have been no public speeches, no open forums, and no contact with the student body. Jane Fernandes said that this will be solved through dialogue, and building bridges. Dialogue and Bridges have yet to be established. We have a problem."
Whatever dialogue (if any) was attempted was most likely stymied by the intractable positions taken by both sides: the students would not end their protest, and Fernandes would not resign. In addition to this impasse, it is to be presumed that the Board and Fernandes either did not want to attempt building "bridges" until after the protests had ceased, or perhaps they never intended to try to heal the divisions. In any event, the actual or perceived (it really does not matter) lack of genuine discussion and attempts at reconciliation did not make the task easier for either side.
Late Thursday night, October 5, the students, independently of FSSA, decided to occupy Hall Memorial Building (HMB), where most classrooms and department offices are located. This decision was made partly in the wake of the use of fertilizer on the front lawn where Tent City was located. In the aftermath of student complaints about the use of "earth juice," and their attempts to confront Jordan in College Hall, the students decided to move Tent City to an area closer to and around HMB. From here, it was but a short step to taking over the building entirely. This unilateral move took everyone by suprise. Unfortunately, it exposed an apparent schism within FSSA, and created potential new opponents of student tactics. Among those who were disturbed was a group calling themselves "Concerned Students." This coalition made it known that they were distressed about being unable to attend classes and obtain an education. One of their number, Bobby White, wrote a guest post at DeafDC. Far from spurring the troops and garnering more support, the protesters were seen as having made a monumental blunder.
But the administration didn't do itself any favors either. For example, the administration's efforts to control the narrative and maintain media focus on their side of the story spiraled into an ongoing meme. Even as the seizure of HMB gained national attention, University spokeswoman Mercy Coogan continued to spin the notion that the protest was all about Fernandes' "not being deaf enough": Coogan said the complaints about Fernandes arose out of the question of whether she was "deaf enough." This quote, part of a CNN article, concluded with Coogan stating, "the university is committed to "visual communications," and that those who work for the school are expected to know some level of sign language."
I've already addressed this quote elsewhere, but again, why is simply knowing "some level of sign language" acceptable? The administration should know better, especially since its president and president-designate are both deaf. As deaf people, they knew that no communication is 100% accessible to deaf people in general, and that Gallaudet was one of the few places where deaf people should have a guarantee of 100% communication accessibility. Additionally, in her internal communications to the campus community, Fernandes made it clear she knew there were several issues at hand: audism, racism, etc. So why pretend that she had no idea what the fuss was about? Why pretend that it merely boiled down to identity politics? The administration as a whole should have taken the grievances presented by the students, FSSA, and the community at large seriously; instead, they decided to play a public relations game, hoping that by borrowing tactics perfected by professional politicians (especially those serving in the current federal administration), they could control the narrative indefinitely and wear down the protesters.
Another blunder on the part of the administration was the fateful decision to send in campus security, ostensibly to deal with a bomb threat, into HMB. The Department of Public Safety (DPS) was known as DOSS in my time, and I still think of them as DOSS. DPS entered HMB on Friday, October 6. The history of troubled miscommunication between DPS and the student body has been a long one, and an especially low point was the death of Carl DuPree in 1990, when DOSS (as it was then known) used a chokehold to detain DuPree in the wake of a confrontation DuPree had at the English department concerning his progress with his English courses (I'm not finding a full link for it here, but Judith Treesberg (mother of Esme Farb), wrote an article about the tragedy for The Nation; additionally, MishkaZena, a "reporter" on the current events happening at Gallaudet, has a fairly accurate summary of the event posted at her blog). DuPree's death occurred at a time when students were highly critical of the English department and Gallaudet's approach to teaching English, which is an issue that still hasn't been fully resolved either.
One of the controversial points during the subsequent grand jury investigation was the fact that DOSS employed officers who had minimal signing skills. Despite the hiring of security officers such as Dean Prentice and Kurt Kornkven, the majority of DOSS/DPS personnel since has continued to be filled with people who have extremely basic to limited ASL skills.
The failure of DOSS/DPS and the administration to learn from this tragic history resurfaced in a new confrontation at HMB, where students reported being pushed, manhandled, and targeted with pepper spray. The videos and vlogs that spread the story throughout the community were mixed; one, obviously taken by someone who probably received a failing grade in a TFP (Television and Film Production; I have no idea what the courses are called now, or that they are even taught. I vaguely recall the entire TFP department was closed a while back) course, is not all that convincing. Another one is slightly better (although I can't find the link I had now). Whoever manned the cameras did a better job of holding it steady, and you can see DPS restraining students. While it's not a replay of the Democratic National Convention in 1968, you can see that as DPS becomes aware that there is someone taping them from behind (and others taking pictures), they suddenly back off. A bit suspicious, no? As for the pepper spray, a special edition of the campus newspaper (PDF link), The Buff and Blue, shows a DPS officer purportedly aiming a canister at students.
As someone who has protested for various causes over many years, I have seen pepper spray used (although luckily I've never been directly hit!), and believe me, it takes a while for the sting to go away. A few people commented on this at GallyNet-L as well-- I'm surprised no one has taken photos of actual people suffering from the pepper spray attack, or posted a redacted medical form after being treated for pepper spray. Still, based on the photo, student testimonies of rough treatment, and my own personal experience with DOSS/DPS officers who couldn't sign to save their life, I'd have to say that I lean towards the student account of what happened, regardless of the administrations denials that there was any mistreatment or use of pepper spray. Additionally, as Joseph Rainmound says over at Deaf in the City, the use of pepper spray against deaf people, who rely on their eyes not just for orientation but communication, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Regardless of whether students actually were maced or not, sending in officers with severely limited communication skills and practically no background/experience in civil disobedience situations into an occupied building held by protesters was not only a PR blunder, it was an extremely stupid move by whoever ultimately authorized it, whether it was Jordan, Fernandes, both, or someone else. DC police would have been a better choice for such a task.
But I must say that if it was I who was coordinating student/FSSA strategy, I wouldn't have bothered with HMB. While it seems like a very defensible building, it does directly interfere with academics, and doesn't really do anything to further the protest goals. My opinion on this is in retrospect, of course, but I think it would have been wiser to not relocate Tent City to HMB, but to surround College Hall instead. While there's less of a lawn or comfortable area for tents, it would have been more appropriate both in tactical and symbolic terms-- instead of surrounding the faculty (of whom a large portion were sympathetic, if not actually actively supporting the students), the students could have made their presence *extremely* visible to the administration daily, and demonstrated to the media their encircling a recalcitrant leadership. Classes would not have been disturbed, but Fernandes and Jordan would have definitely had no way to avoid the protesters. But-- it didn't happen, and at this point, c'est la vie.
In the meantime, a proliferating number of sister "Tent Cities" sprouted up all over the nation, from the SF Bay Area to St. Augustine, Florida. The increased visibility, support, and anger emanating from the alumni and the deaf community just highlighted the deepening chasm between the administration and its various constituencies.
Meanwhile, the Board of Trustees issued a response to the events of October 6, thus beginning a period over the coming week of charges of increased demands, revoked demands, failed communication, and overlapping events that were totally at odds. In the letter released by Dr. Brueggemann, the BoT stated that "[w]e were in the process of considering the protestors’ request for an independent review of the selection process, not our decision, when we were advised that the protestors have taken that demand off the table. It is difficult for the Administration to negotiate when the students make two non-negotiable demands." The letter then reiterates full board support for Dr. Fernandes as the next president.
If this is true, I wouldn't have taken the demand for an independent review off the table-- it may not have resulted in the immediate desire to see Dr. Fernandes step down or be removed, but it would have led to something that needs to happen anyway: an overhaul of the selection process. But the BoT, in speaking of "non-negotiable demands," demonstrated yet again their unwillingness to realize the building opposition among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the deaf community at large to the ascension of Dr. Fernandes to the presidency.
During the BoT's time at Gallaudet at the end of that week, a ceremony was held to rename the Student Academic Center the I. King Jordan SAC, and naming an art gallery in the Washburn Arts Building after Linda Jordan, Dr. Jordan's wife. While I agreed with the renaming of the SAC after Jordan, I was and am completely opposed to the renaming of the art gallery. Apparently a number of people agreed with me, because during the ceremonies, liquid was thrown at Dr. Jordan in front of the public and his family.
Such immature behavior turned off quite a few people, including myself (since the events of Black Friday, the name of Dr. Jordan has been chipped off the SAC). The combination of these events-- the inability of the protesters to settle on a simple message and craft a logical narrative/reasons for asking Dr. Fernandes to leave, the treatment of Dr. Jordan in public, the unilateral takeover of HMB, and the apparent indecision about which demands to present to officials left a lot of people, including myself, thinking the protest was in disarray. Many of us were still sympathetic to the overall goals, but also felt that perhaps things were getting out of hand.
Indeed, a number of alumni and other concerned deaf individuals I spoke to at that time either were not interested at all in the protest (including a well-known deaf alumni, child of deaf alumni), were sympathetic, but abhorred the protesters' tactics, or were fully involved in the protest and active supporters, but acknowledged that too many mistakes had been made. The divisions were spreading beyond campus, and threatening to weaken overall support for the protest. A few people privately divulged to me that they agreed there was a very real possibility the protest would fail, even though they hoped that that wouldn't happen.
By October 10, it was clear the students themselves were unclear about what exactly they wanted. Rather than keep their priorities simple and their message clear, they submitted an appended list of additional items to the original two requests (the re-opening of the search process, and no reprisals); a list that totaled 23 separate demands. While some of these propositions were reasonable, or were goals that seemed plausible, they really should have been tabled and brought up AFTER the protest was over. To suddenly petition the administration with an expanded laundry list and then set a deadline (one that in my opinion, was way too short), was rightfully denounced by the administration. The frustration was apparent in a letter released by Dr. Jordan, in which he stated,
The chaos led the Washington Post to issue an editorial, "Standoff at Gallaudet: The wrong way to shape the university's future," which admonished the protesters and concluded that it was time to give Fernandes "a chance." Events at that point conspired to prod both sides, still locked in conflict, to give negotiations yet another chance. In a press release on Wednesday, October 11, it was announced that
If u are up...... The students have locked down the campus.
In yet another unilateral move, the students, led by members of the football team, decided to secure the gates and seize the entire campus. Over the next 48 hours, the Tent City Protest would take another irreversible turn, on its way towards a yet unforseen (but in my opinion, rapidly approaching) conclusion.
On Monday, October 2, "Tent City" was revived on the slope facing Florida Avenue NE, and protesters again gathered around the front gates. This time, media attention focused rapidly, rather than after a slow swell of events leading to a confrontation or new development. However, at the outset, not much was different from May; the same people, the same issues, the same location. What HAD changed was the effect of the various letters, directives, meetings, and speeches over the summer. The cumulative effect was to harden positions on both sides. No one seemed genuinely willing to admit any mistakes on their part. Because of this, in retrospect given the events of this week, what followed was a train wreck just waiting to happen.
While FSSA and other "official" groups still couldn't somehow manage to draft some sort of reasoning behind their decisions to protest, individuals here and there started to post in various forums their rationales for supporting or actively participating in the protest. The best I saw was the October 2 letter from Tara Holcomb. While her brief discussion of "oppression" was rather vague, didn't clarify anything, and was strongly based on emotion, her next two reasons started to coalesce a narrative together: the lack of shared governance, and Fernandes' failures as a leader. One point she made is one I've referenced ages ago, back in May, and one that quite a few people have mentioned, but that no one seems to get the media to sit up and notice: Gallaudet faculty passed a vote of no confidence in Fernandes. I have no idea if this is wholly the fault of the student leaders, or the media; I suspect a bit of both. In today's climate, the media in general has a tendency to be lazy when it comes to actual reporting. While the Washington Post, via Susan Kinzie, has done a fair job of covering the story, the media as a whole could have done better.
It is facts like these that needed to be sewed together into a narrative back in May, and so far no one has really done a good job of it. Problems with Fernandes while she was head of Pre-College Programs; problems with Fernandes while she was provost; the no-confidence votes taken when Fernandes first began as provost, and when she was selected as president; the curious unbalanced makeup of the pool of finalists; the unwillingness of the Board of Trustees, Jordan, and Fernandes to truly listen to the sentiments coming from the community; and most of all, the divisiveness that has erupted since. Taken together, they paint a picture that isn't a very pretty one.
But I digress; as of October 2, Tent City was back. Despite the rhetoric by the Board and Fernandes, the students via Noah Beckman in his role as SBG president stated "There have been no public speeches, no open forums, and no contact with the student body. Jane Fernandes said that this will be solved through dialogue, and building bridges. Dialogue and Bridges have yet to be established. We have a problem."
Whatever dialogue (if any) was attempted was most likely stymied by the intractable positions taken by both sides: the students would not end their protest, and Fernandes would not resign. In addition to this impasse, it is to be presumed that the Board and Fernandes either did not want to attempt building "bridges" until after the protests had ceased, or perhaps they never intended to try to heal the divisions. In any event, the actual or perceived (it really does not matter) lack of genuine discussion and attempts at reconciliation did not make the task easier for either side.
Late Thursday night, October 5, the students, independently of FSSA, decided to occupy Hall Memorial Building (HMB), where most classrooms and department offices are located. This decision was made partly in the wake of the use of fertilizer on the front lawn where Tent City was located. In the aftermath of student complaints about the use of "earth juice," and their attempts to confront Jordan in College Hall, the students decided to move Tent City to an area closer to and around HMB. From here, it was but a short step to taking over the building entirely. This unilateral move took everyone by suprise. Unfortunately, it exposed an apparent schism within FSSA, and created potential new opponents of student tactics. Among those who were disturbed was a group calling themselves "Concerned Students." This coalition made it known that they were distressed about being unable to attend classes and obtain an education. One of their number, Bobby White, wrote a guest post at DeafDC. Far from spurring the troops and garnering more support, the protesters were seen as having made a monumental blunder.
But the administration didn't do itself any favors either. For example, the administration's efforts to control the narrative and maintain media focus on their side of the story spiraled into an ongoing meme. Even as the seizure of HMB gained national attention, University spokeswoman Mercy Coogan continued to spin the notion that the protest was all about Fernandes' "not being deaf enough": Coogan said the complaints about Fernandes arose out of the question of whether she was "deaf enough." This quote, part of a CNN article, concluded with Coogan stating, "the university is committed to "visual communications," and that those who work for the school are expected to know some level of sign language."
I've already addressed this quote elsewhere, but again, why is simply knowing "some level of sign language" acceptable? The administration should know better, especially since its president and president-designate are both deaf. As deaf people, they knew that no communication is 100% accessible to deaf people in general, and that Gallaudet was one of the few places where deaf people should have a guarantee of 100% communication accessibility. Additionally, in her internal communications to the campus community, Fernandes made it clear she knew there were several issues at hand: audism, racism, etc. So why pretend that she had no idea what the fuss was about? Why pretend that it merely boiled down to identity politics? The administration as a whole should have taken the grievances presented by the students, FSSA, and the community at large seriously; instead, they decided to play a public relations game, hoping that by borrowing tactics perfected by professional politicians (especially those serving in the current federal administration), they could control the narrative indefinitely and wear down the protesters.
Another blunder on the part of the administration was the fateful decision to send in campus security, ostensibly to deal with a bomb threat, into HMB. The Department of Public Safety (DPS) was known as DOSS in my time, and I still think of them as DOSS. DPS entered HMB on Friday, October 6. The history of troubled miscommunication between DPS and the student body has been a long one, and an especially low point was the death of Carl DuPree in 1990, when DOSS (as it was then known) used a chokehold to detain DuPree in the wake of a confrontation DuPree had at the English department concerning his progress with his English courses (I'm not finding a full link for it here, but Judith Treesberg (mother of Esme Farb), wrote an article about the tragedy for The Nation; additionally, MishkaZena, a "reporter" on the current events happening at Gallaudet, has a fairly accurate summary of the event posted at her blog). DuPree's death occurred at a time when students were highly critical of the English department and Gallaudet's approach to teaching English, which is an issue that still hasn't been fully resolved either.
One of the controversial points during the subsequent grand jury investigation was the fact that DOSS employed officers who had minimal signing skills. Despite the hiring of security officers such as Dean Prentice and Kurt Kornkven, the majority of DOSS/DPS personnel since has continued to be filled with people who have extremely basic to limited ASL skills.
The failure of DOSS/DPS and the administration to learn from this tragic history resurfaced in a new confrontation at HMB, where students reported being pushed, manhandled, and targeted with pepper spray. The videos and vlogs that spread the story throughout the community were mixed; one, obviously taken by someone who probably received a failing grade in a TFP (Television and Film Production; I have no idea what the courses are called now, or that they are even taught. I vaguely recall the entire TFP department was closed a while back) course, is not all that convincing. Another one is slightly better (although I can't find the link I had now). Whoever manned the cameras did a better job of holding it steady, and you can see DPS restraining students. While it's not a replay of the Democratic National Convention in 1968, you can see that as DPS becomes aware that there is someone taping them from behind (and others taking pictures), they suddenly back off. A bit suspicious, no? As for the pepper spray, a special edition of the campus newspaper (PDF link), The Buff and Blue, shows a DPS officer purportedly aiming a canister at students.
As someone who has protested for various causes over many years, I have seen pepper spray used (although luckily I've never been directly hit!), and believe me, it takes a while for the sting to go away. A few people commented on this at GallyNet-L as well-- I'm surprised no one has taken photos of actual people suffering from the pepper spray attack, or posted a redacted medical form after being treated for pepper spray. Still, based on the photo, student testimonies of rough treatment, and my own personal experience with DOSS/DPS officers who couldn't sign to save their life, I'd have to say that I lean towards the student account of what happened, regardless of the administrations denials that there was any mistreatment or use of pepper spray. Additionally, as Joseph Rainmound says over at Deaf in the City, the use of pepper spray against deaf people, who rely on their eyes not just for orientation but communication, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Regardless of whether students actually were maced or not, sending in officers with severely limited communication skills and practically no background/experience in civil disobedience situations into an occupied building held by protesters was not only a PR blunder, it was an extremely stupid move by whoever ultimately authorized it, whether it was Jordan, Fernandes, both, or someone else. DC police would have been a better choice for such a task.
But I must say that if it was I who was coordinating student/FSSA strategy, I wouldn't have bothered with HMB. While it seems like a very defensible building, it does directly interfere with academics, and doesn't really do anything to further the protest goals. My opinion on this is in retrospect, of course, but I think it would have been wiser to not relocate Tent City to HMB, but to surround College Hall instead. While there's less of a lawn or comfortable area for tents, it would have been more appropriate both in tactical and symbolic terms-- instead of surrounding the faculty (of whom a large portion were sympathetic, if not actually actively supporting the students), the students could have made their presence *extremely* visible to the administration daily, and demonstrated to the media their encircling a recalcitrant leadership. Classes would not have been disturbed, but Fernandes and Jordan would have definitely had no way to avoid the protesters. But-- it didn't happen, and at this point, c'est la vie.
In the meantime, a proliferating number of sister "Tent Cities" sprouted up all over the nation, from the SF Bay Area to St. Augustine, Florida. The increased visibility, support, and anger emanating from the alumni and the deaf community just highlighted the deepening chasm between the administration and its various constituencies.
Meanwhile, the Board of Trustees issued a response to the events of October 6, thus beginning a period over the coming week of charges of increased demands, revoked demands, failed communication, and overlapping events that were totally at odds. In the letter released by Dr. Brueggemann, the BoT stated that "[w]e were in the process of considering the protestors’ request for an independent review of the selection process, not our decision, when we were advised that the protestors have taken that demand off the table. It is difficult for the Administration to negotiate when the students make two non-negotiable demands." The letter then reiterates full board support for Dr. Fernandes as the next president.
If this is true, I wouldn't have taken the demand for an independent review off the table-- it may not have resulted in the immediate desire to see Dr. Fernandes step down or be removed, but it would have led to something that needs to happen anyway: an overhaul of the selection process. But the BoT, in speaking of "non-negotiable demands," demonstrated yet again their unwillingness to realize the building opposition among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the deaf community at large to the ascension of Dr. Fernandes to the presidency.
During the BoT's time at Gallaudet at the end of that week, a ceremony was held to rename the Student Academic Center the I. King Jordan SAC, and naming an art gallery in the Washburn Arts Building after Linda Jordan, Dr. Jordan's wife. While I agreed with the renaming of the SAC after Jordan, I was and am completely opposed to the renaming of the art gallery. Apparently a number of people agreed with me, because during the ceremonies, liquid was thrown at Dr. Jordan in front of the public and his family.
Such immature behavior turned off quite a few people, including myself (since the events of Black Friday, the name of Dr. Jordan has been chipped off the SAC). The combination of these events-- the inability of the protesters to settle on a simple message and craft a logical narrative/reasons for asking Dr. Fernandes to leave, the treatment of Dr. Jordan in public, the unilateral takeover of HMB, and the apparent indecision about which demands to present to officials left a lot of people, including myself, thinking the protest was in disarray. Many of us were still sympathetic to the overall goals, but also felt that perhaps things were getting out of hand.
Indeed, a number of alumni and other concerned deaf individuals I spoke to at that time either were not interested at all in the protest (including a well-known deaf alumni, child of deaf alumni), were sympathetic, but abhorred the protesters' tactics, or were fully involved in the protest and active supporters, but acknowledged that too many mistakes had been made. The divisions were spreading beyond campus, and threatening to weaken overall support for the protest. A few people privately divulged to me that they agreed there was a very real possibility the protest would fail, even though they hoped that that wouldn't happen.
By October 10, it was clear the students themselves were unclear about what exactly they wanted. Rather than keep their priorities simple and their message clear, they submitted an appended list of additional items to the original two requests (the re-opening of the search process, and no reprisals); a list that totaled 23 separate demands. While some of these propositions were reasonable, or were goals that seemed plausible, they really should have been tabled and brought up AFTER the protest was over. To suddenly petition the administration with an expanded laundry list and then set a deadline (one that in my opinion, was way too short), was rightfully denounced by the administration. The frustration was apparent in a letter released by Dr. Jordan, in which he stated,
I was looking forward to announcing a peaceful resolution today to the campus building takeover. We actually had a signed agreement this afternoon with the president of the Student Body Government. He has since rescinded his signature. We have been negotiating in good faith... and each time we thought we had arrived at an agreement, the dissenters changed their demands.The students countered this by stating that SBG president Beckham had either never signed such an agreement, or had signed "under duress." Regardless, it did not look good to renege on a signed agreement (it's one thing to back out BEFORE signing anything, but to default on a signed document after the fact is not acceptable, ethically, morally, or legally.), and the 23 demands depicted (whether rightfully or not) a student leadership unable to consistently maintain their original stated goals.
The chaos led the Washington Post to issue an editorial, "Standoff at Gallaudet: The wrong way to shape the university's future," which admonished the protesters and concluded that it was time to give Fernandes "a chance." Events at that point conspired to prod both sides, still locked in conflict, to give negotiations yet another chance. In a press release on Wednesday, October 11, it was announced that
In response to the HMB lockdown, a negotiation team has been established between the University administration and the Student Body Government. We, the representatives on the team, agree to confer with each other so as to arrive at an agreement on matters that are brought to the table.In the wake of the planned negotations came an announcement early the next morning that would change the dynamics of the protest completely. Early the next morning, I received the following message, relayed to me by a friend:
We are pleased with the progress made tonight and look forward to positive outcomes that will serve in the best interests of the University.
If u are up...... The students have locked down the campus.
In yet another unilateral move, the students, led by members of the football team, decided to secure the gates and seize the entire campus. Over the next 48 hours, the Tent City Protest would take another irreversible turn, on its way towards a yet unforseen (but in my opinion, rapidly approaching) conclusion.
posted by Mr. Sandman | 6:36 PM
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