13-05-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
‘Deaf President Now!' Review: Signs of Dissent on Apple TV+
It takes years to become fluent in sign language, according to a principal figure in the documentary 'Deaf President Now!' It isn't something you learn overnight. And yet, there's one gesture that has always been immediately understood by both the deaf and hearing worlds. It involves a finger. Which was offered to Gallaudet University by its student body in 1988.
The offense? The hiring of a hearing person with no sign-language skills to head the world's most famous school for the deaf. At the time, the university in the nation's capital was 124 years old, having been founded by an act of Congress signed by Abraham Lincoln. The peaceful but angry eruption took place at a time that just preceded the Americans With Disabilities Act (though the implication is that the protests hastened passage). The deaf community at Gallaudet was ready for a deaf president. It thought the world was, too.
