We’ve all known for years that academic standards at Gallaudet are an absolute joke, and a sad one at that. And although people can talk about the reasons–because the deaf schools and programs don’t prepare students effectively for college or ensure appropriate levels of literacy, because students have been let slide for so long that they have a hard time changing once they get to college, because the university lets so many behavioral issues go unpunished that academics are sure to suffer consequently–I think the real issue is that Gallaudet has an unspoken, inherently flawed mission statement. It would seem that the Gallaudet mindset is this: “Every deaf person should have a college education.” And this is just patently false. Not every HEARING person should have a college education, because quite frankly, not every hearing person is college material. Some aren’t smart enough, literate enough, motivated enough or dedicated enough to make a college education a worthwhile pursuit. If it’s not a good fit for all hearing people, then why would it be a good fit for all deaf people? It isn’t, plain and simple. Yet Gallaudet, every year, continues to admit subliterates without the ability to write a simple coherent sentence, much less read a college textbook, knowing that by the end of homecoming festivities, nearly half of them will have dropped out. Even more of them will have been academically suspended by the end of their first year because they didn’t have what it took to make it in college. I suspect strongly that if academic rigors at Gallaudet were anything like they are at most universities, only about a tenth of the freshman class would be around after their first year. Unfortunately, they aren’t, and so many of those who do stick around for the long haul end up in the same classrooms with the truly bright, the truly gifted and competent. It’s a recipe for disaster, and those who actually do have what it takes to study on a true university level find their progress slowed to a painfully, frustratingly grinding pace by professors who have to dumb down materials and discussions to the speed of classmates who really should never have been admitted to Gallaudet (or any other university) in the first place.

But the worst thing is the atmosphere of intolerance that permeates Gallaudet at every level. When I chose to transfer to Gallaudet, I thought that in doing so, I would find a more tolerant environment, an environment where I would have the opportunity to stand out for what I COULD do, rather than what I COULDN’T do. That had been the issue at the university I had been attending, and quite frankly, I was getting tired of being known as “that deaf girl”. So I transferred.

What I found, over time, was that the social and academic environment at Gallaudet was more oppressive than anything I had ever experienced in my life. At Gallaudet, instead of being “that deaf girl”, I was “that deaf girl who betrays the community by dating hearing guys”, (never mind that it was my right to date whomever I pleased on the basis of personality and shared interests) “that deaf girl who’s so arrogant because she speaks and reads lips”, (regardless of the fact that I communicate fluently not just in speaking, but also in ASL and Signed English, and would gladly change my communication strategies to accommodate the needs of whomever I was speaking with at any given moment) “that deaf girl who thinks English is so important” (said derisively, until the end of the semester, anyway, at which point the very same people would be sucking up to me to get help on their final papers) and “that deaf girl who hates her fellow deaf” (even though I had truckloads of friends at Gallaudet–others who felt, as I did, that the ASL/Deaf Culture Nazis were just beyond the pale in terms of their oppressiveness).

Things weren’t much better among professors. While most recognized me as being bright and hard-working, I’m also fairly religious, and decidedly politically conservative. I found again and again that when I asserted any point of view that didn’t fit in with a professor’s left-leaning, PC beliefs, even when I could produce PROOF of a completely non-religious, non-political nature showing that their viewpoint was not the only potentially valid one, I was shot down mercilessly.

It would seem that the overriding theme (in my experience, at least, your mileage may vary) is that at Gallaudet, diversity of thought and feeling will not be tolerated in or out of the classroom. Failure to throw oneself and everything that makes one a unique individual aside to embrace the party line will result in misery.

Gallaudet, get the paperwork done, change staff/student ratios, get rid of professors and students who are incompetent to study or work in a university environment, stop admitting students who don’t have the foundational skills necessary to succeed at the university level and make Gallaudet a place of learning so esteemed that hearing people almost wish they were deaf so they could attend. And if that proves to be too much of a challenge, then close your doors. Better to have no deaf university at all than a poor one that brings the abilities and attitudes of all deaf people into question for the world at large.

Testing, yes, Gally Adm had been derelict. They didn’t do their paperwork and have been caught red handed trying to bury the PART review. The Interim President will have his hands cleaning up Jordan’s mess and regaining the trust of both the accreditation agency and Congress. Jordan really damaged the university big time