Deaf Gally Board of Trustee Used Voice at Gally Graduation Ceremony!

You remember. I'm sure you have. Or at least many of you did. It was supposedly one of the more remembered so called "scandal" at Gallaudet University in 2006. We had Dr. Brenda Brueggemann, who is deaf and was the Commencement Speaker for Gallaudet University's graduating class of 2006, use her voice instead of ASL. She was at the time the interim Acting Chair of the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees. She took Celia May Baldwin's position after she resigned because of threats against her by some nutty pro-DPN2 protesters.

After many sleepless nights and much reflection these past several days, I regret to tell you that on Sunday night I came to the decision to resign from the Gallaudet Board of Trustees. The presidential search and the controversy that has ensued have put enormous strain and stress on me. I simply could not ignore the numerous aggressive threats I have received over the past weeks.

Celia May Baldwin was supposed to be the 2006 Commencement Speaker at the Gallaudet University graduation ceremony and she would have signed in ASL, too. Instead she resigned a few days before the graduation date. The Acting Chair position soon fell into Dr. Brueggemann's lap a few days later. Thus making her to be the 2006 Commencement Speaker.

Oh, what joy!

Below is an email response from Dr. Brueggemann. Both of us exchanged emails in my conversations with her to understand what went on with her after the DPN2 protest and why she used her voice that day. I emailed her yesterday and got her permission to print this email response explaining why she used her voice for the graduating class that day on May 12, 2006. Below is the email from Dr. Brueggemann dated November 28, 2006 (the first link below is mine in order to point out what Dr. Brueggemann was referencing to).

I'm glad you made your communication preferences very clear at the outset of the development of this event at GU on Feb. 3. (I know both who Jill Bradbury and Christian Vogler are) I have found that lately--say, the past 4 years especially--the "policing" over the use of ASL at GU has grown considerably. I think there are some good and "right" reasons for that. But meanwhile, there also does need to be some flexibility and respect for all abilities and kinds of language and communication. Amen.

Your choice to use your voice sounds much like what I would say. I make the comparison often that if I were going to Germany (which I did a few summers ago) and asked to give an academic or public lecture there I would always chose to do so in English, if I could, first and foremost because it is my "native" language and the one I feel most comfortable and expressively capable in. Now, I can carry on a halfway decent conversation in German (I used to teach it back when I was a high school teacher) and probably even muddle, painfully slowly and simply, through something like a "lecture" in German if I had to. But if I have the chance to use my native language for major events like this, that's always what I would choose.

Meanwhile, I do also completely understand the reason and "right" for using ASL more and "better" --especially at places like Gallaudet. My ASL is only about half-good right now--not even as good as my German probably. But I can have conversations. I did so all the time as Board Chair with King and other Gu administrators directly on VRS (not using interpreters). I get by. And had I had any time to actually prepare my remarks for the GU graduation last May, I probably would have signed them more or at least part of them. But I didn't have that prep time. I was dropped into the Acting Chair's position on May 10, to be exact--once CM Baldwin resigned. And I was handed the remarks she was supposed to deliver (already scripted) for graduation on May 12. In fact, they didn't even give me the script until the morning of May 12. And it still had her name at the top of it! So, using oral/spoken English, I could feel comfortable enough to develop a few of my own "touches" in the prepared script. But I sure couldn't do that trying to use ASL....

When I delivered the remarks at the naming of the Linda K. Jordan Art Gallery on Oct. 5 I actually WROTE the remarks myself (not from a prepared script someone in the GU President's office prepared for me... as they almost always did for Glenn Anderson, the former Chair) and then I also had plenty of time to practice turning them into some ASL. And I did so. Rudimentary though it was.

I always struggle to accept that some people in the community can be, well, so militant about ASL use now and actually "hold it against me." Should I really be blamed for the fact that I grew up in the 60s and 70s in very very rural remote western Kansas and my parents made choices for me that then meant I did not even really know about ASL or Gallaudet U until it was 1988, DPN was happening, and I was taking my first sign language class in the basement of a Baptist church in Louisville Kentucky (at the age of 29, as a Ph.D. student). Is that really MY fault?

Well, that's my soapbox for the day. I've written about some of these things in my published essays as well....

Good to "chat" with you.

Best, Brenda

I don't blame her. Such a short window of time to do her speech and even less time to practice her speech in ASL where she hadn't gain complete fluency yet. It's understable now why she used her voice. I already knew that for more than four years now. Yet how so wrong most of you were about her decision to user her voice. Such bad assumptions. And even worse is to attack her for using her voice. So, shame on you!

At the time in 2006 several bloggers, even some of the well known ones, excoriated her derisively, mercilessly and even cruelly for using her voice to speak at the graduation ceremony. One blog called Random Thoughts and Musings by Moi took it personally and was offended by Dr. Brueggemann's choice and that she shouldn't have used her voice and that it was plainly wrong.

People in our community are free to choose what language they want to use in various situations - I absolutely agree with that. Dr. Brueggemann's choice, however, went far beyond the bounds of diversity and was, in my view, a grave offense. I took great affront at her choice that day...

Oh really? And yet all of your conclusions never came close as to why used her voice and the reasons behind it.

Perhaps it's time that you (Random Thoughts and Musings by Moi) and many other bloggers who wrongly attacked Dr. Brueggemann in 2006 ought to make a public apology to her. An apology for your false charges, derisions, insults or make these unwarranted attacks against her just because she decided to use her voice that day. Her reasons were valid considering the constraint she was in as you can tell in her email to me back in 2006.

Again, it took a blogger like me who took the time to email (back in 2006) Dr. Brueggemann to ask her questions regarding the use of her voice instead of ASL at the Gallaudet University graduation ceremony. It may have been four years later but I think it's high time now that you, the public, the readers, some of the harrassers, the nutjobs who threatened CM Baldwin, and whoever could benefit from this would finally understand exactly why she used her voice that day.

Remember what Dr. Brueggemann said (see picture above the captions) in her Commencement Speech video starting at 45:15:

"Keep an open mind when you meet people and ideas that are new and different."

So, true. Keep an open mind. Not everybody is fluent in ASL. Not everybody who is deaf knows ASL. Many do prefer to use their voice rather than sign. And so four years later in her email to me today she has another quote and message for all of you readers.

"Hey, I like my voice!" I'm proud of it. It's unique, it's mine, I like it. I think I'll use it! - Dr. Brenda Brueggemann. Sept 1, 2010.

Yeah, me, too.

So now you know the rest of the story.

Related blog - Voice is way, way better than ASL!