Deaf President Now (DPN) was a student protest in March 1988 at Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. The university, established by an act of Congress in 1864 to serve the Deaf, had always been led by a hearing president. The protest began on March 6, 1988, when the Board of Trustees announced its decision to appoint a hearing person as its seventh president.
Gallaudet students, backed by a number of alumni, staff, and faculty, shut down the campus. Protesters barricaded gates, burned effigies, and gave interviews to the press demanding four specific concessions from the Board. The protest ended on March 13, 1988, with the appointment of I. King Jordan, a Deaf person, as university president. Not only did this bring success to the university, but it brought along deeper cultural changes and improvements to the wider Deaf community.
Famous quotes containing the words deaf and/or president:
“O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment—the sober second thought—of the people.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)