Gallaudet President – …And the Truth Shall Set You Free.

Dear ambassadors of Gallaudet community,

I would like to thank the (Gallaudet) University Communications Team, which is a public relations-appointed team to represent Gallaudet University. The communication is to represent the ambassadors of Gallaudet community with truth. It is extremely important to be aware about the truth.

Freudian slip.

“The difference between truth and fact is that fact is something that cannot be combated with reasoning, for it is logic itself. But truth is something which depends on a person’s perspective and experience”

It is important to seek healthy resolutions for the Deaf. There are plenty of Deaf alumni and alumnus experience being oppressed at Gallaudet. This brings to the question: How do we converse Gallaudet University into a new university so that we can embrace higher learning that best reflects our own intellectual freedom?

The University Communications Team writes:

“Gallaudet University is primarily for deaf and hard of hearing students, and has been since 1864. It has always welcomed hearing students who are bilingual and committed to learning in a signing environment. From time to time, there are challenges to this very notion, on social media and elsewhere. We recognize that these pieces represent a broader struggle that our community has faced for years in regards to discrimination, exclusion, or audism. As a community of Deaf people, it is important that we recognize this while a the same time separating facts from fiction.”

The thoughts to the oppression: discrimination, exclusion, or Audism, is much more serious ideological more than its own generosity. Gallaudet Deaf students had been the subject of the most serious oppressed group, and its ambition to weaken ASL and Deaf culture.

In Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking by H-Dirksen L. Bauman:

“The dynamics of audism principally take the form of colonial relations. Ladd and Lane have both explored parallels between colonization and the Deaf experience, through the eradication of indigenous language, education, values and history…..The history of deaf people comes to light, we see that it is bound up in the historical practices of normalization…”

In 2000, I believe that the survey asking Deaf students: Have they seen the word, “Audism” before? Very few Deaf students recognized the term, two years later in 2002, more Deaf students were aware about Audism.

That is what it is the core of the problem on the Gallaudet campus, not delivering enough awareness about Audism even today, the signing environment on the campus is not exactly ASL-centered enough, and the ideological had created bigger problems.

For example, the approval of cochlear implant center in 2006. Why cannot Gallaudet admit that the fact that it is creating the consequences of this misinformation are disastrous, not only for Deaf people, but for the entire world, especially social media?

Always with old habit and inertia, fear has much to do with keeping reality the same as it always was: status quo. The beloved ship we call Gallaudet, opening the way to unknown is hard for many of us to accept, yet it is only avenue into ASL and Deaf culture, our own world. We are aware that in a world of change that we are currently witnessing at Gallaudet University, there must be gain and loss. Our society judges gain to be good and loss to be bad.

Undergraduate Enrollment of Deaf Studies in the United States: Carrie Lou Garberoglio, Jeffrey Levi Palmer, and Stephanie Cawthon did a research sponsored by National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes:

“Postsecondary enrollment rates for deaf people have increased since the 1980s, in large part due to legislative action and increased accessibility of educational environments (Newman et al; 2011) Despite increased access to postsecondary education, fewer deaf people complete college degrees than their hearing peers (Gaberoglio, Palmer, Cawthon, & Sales, 2019a) National data show that only 5% of deaf people were currently enrolled in postsecondary institutions of any type, compared to 11% of hearing people (Garberoglio et al; 2019a)

Key Findings:

-Among all currently enrolled college students, 1.3% are deaf (Garberoglio, Palmer, and Cawthon)

-Deaf college students are older than their hearing counterparts, with an average of 31. (Garberoglio, Palmer, and Cawthon)

Why small number? The number of hearing student applications are increasingly more and faster, more power to meet the requirements as Deaf students which is much harder for them to meet the requirements, and hearing fare better in academics, writing, and such than the Deaf students in today’s Deaf Education. Not only that, but today’s Deaf Education around the country is Educational Bankruptcy.

The loss of Gallaudet Preparatory was the biggest hurt. For the pilot program in 2000 was the turning mistake. Before prior to 2000, Gallaudet University was home for Deaf students, before what happened, there were many minor losses along the way, and if we take a moment to think about these losses, we could easily see the pattern of gain and loss that ran throughout the university which was full of adversity, small or large. The gain goes to HUGS and the loss goes to the Deaf.

In 2008:

“PEPNet (Postsecondary Education Programs Network): Educational testing, test developers, language and communication researchers, academicians, K-12 educators and administrators; health professionals; and clinicians. Test Equity Summit—Test Equity for Individuals who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.”

I understand that there were some group of faculty from Gallaudet gave some presentations.

The admittance of hearing students, the communication speculations have been misused to defend educational bankruptcy at Gallaudet, which shall admit that there is a linguistic and cultural colonialism; Think about it, prior to 2000, the power dynamics of Audism had been hidden in the Administration and Operations Manual. The perception of Audism in the signing environment, we shall examine how Audism socialization, uncertainty, and discrimination experiences influence the trust. Is this accurate or inaccurate?

Institutional Audism. Educational Audism. Systematic Audism.

As much as the liberty that CODAs (Children of Deaf Adults) had been highly motivated, to support Deaf community is no question at all, as Edward Miner Gallaudet was all these years, Gallaudet University is just more than a university; it is unique in that its products are scholars of the Deaf. At the same time, there are some CODAs who are also much struggling as Deaf students struggling because they also see the product of language oppression from hearing students who were not enough exposed to Deaf studies.

Gallaudet University is a well-known reference to the attitude of honest acceptance of Deaf people where the celebration of Deaf people for their achievements. That is the most valued community norm to embrace ASL and Deaf culture first.

The “facts” from the last two academic years: what is it that stands between the fact and truth such a state of confusion would loose in the mind and body of a person who believed it? Would you believe that Gallaudet University is renowned university for the Deaf? The content showing numbers is the quest of its public relations–is not important thing, is it not?

Even though there is no question the shortage of brilliant minds in Deaf community, oppression is still practiced at Gallaudet University.

Public relations, the University Communications Team, and campus of Gallaudet, and most importantly, the ambassadors of Gallaudet community, is it often argued that beliefs are somehow distinct from other claims to knowledge social justice of the Deaf? An analogy could influence the case of human memory, while Deaf people are dealing with the systematic Audis; decades of oppression have shown that it comes in many forms today at Gallaudet University.

The University Communications Team on the behalf of Gallaudet University, Audism is the biggest core problem; we were lied to, and even, being exploited. Today’s Deaf Education had failed Deaf students, and to keep Deaf intellectual life–who are worth fighting for, and living for. For example, democracy had been amplified the pursuit of happiness.

The idea of creating a pilot program for HUGs is the collection of message, problematic, and the blueprint for the privatization of Gallaudet University is the main focus of core problem. Nothing to do with hearing people, it is about systematic Audism being granted permanent on a private property, to decide what services to offer, what technical standards to create, or whether instead to sell Deaf souls. It is not a fiction. It is a fact.

“The forces of normalization seem to be the gaining ground, particularly in cases like Australia, where one researcher predicts the death of Australian Sign Language (Auslan) within the next few generations due to high rates of mainstreaming, cochlear implantation, and genetic testing and counseling that discourages parents from carrying deaf babies to birth”–Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking

Gallaudet University today: high rates of mainstreaming, cochlear implantation, genetic testing, counseling, and increase number of hearing privileges. We must embrace ASL and Deaf Studies more than ever. Remember the documentary, The End?

The instructions for the life of Deaf on Earth, shall not deal with linguistic and cultural colonialism. The Gallaudet’s mission, vision, core values, and strategic goals supporting the education and empowerment of Deaf, is falling into the wrong path. The core of the systematic oppression is so infinitely.

The facts had been shared accordingly. I refuse to be called a fiction or a fool.

Thank you,

-Jason “JT” Tozier

P.S. As we understand that the Gallaudet P.R. made a video statement that BAI students were not counted under the eight percent cap–only shown in 2018 figures and did not show any figures on year 2020 either. How come we could not able to see the projected 2020 figures in both fields: online students and BAI students, but they only show the HUGs figures projected for 2020 already and why is that?

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