The ability to communicate thoughts, dreams and ideas is among the most fundamental needs of any person, and access to language is the key.
The deaf have reinvented and reconnected the tissue that binds us together and created a culturally rich tapestry of traditions, folklore and experience that touch hearing and deaf. To negate their culture and presence in society — by not respecting their means of communication with each other and the larger hearing community — is ignorant. It makes a sham of the suggestion that we are a diverse institution.
Oregon’s flagship university — the University of Oregon — must lead the way in making diversity genuine and assuring access to all. Unfortunately, current language policies do a disservice to deaf and hearing when we deny the opportunity to experience this culturally passionate and visually elegant method of communication. When we disregard the contributions and impact of deaf citizens, we miss out on all the deaf offer and the potential new students and faculty that would come seeking studies that include American Sign Language.
The issue has been raised before. Now, thanks to students and faculty, the question is raised again. Will we make change happen and join our sister universities and the rest of the academic community?
Will we follow state and federal laws acknowledging ASL as a language and prepare educators and interpreters in ASL? Will interdepartmental and funding pressures give way to standing for diversity, rather than against it? Diversity means more than color, race, religious, ethnic and sexual experience. To suggest the deaf have no culture is inappropriate. It shouldn’t be accepted as a reason to continue non-compliance with the law.
Therefore, in the belief that current positions are those of an uninformed few who have prevented the present many from moving forward academically, socially and professionally, we offer the University community an invitation to the ASL Now! forum to be held in March.
We will share deaf culture in ways this institution can no longer ignore. Speakers and contributors from across the country will come together and offer a prescription for change. The University should comply with the law, and faculty responsible for making academic policy should do the right thing and immediately institute a curriculum that recognizes ASL as a language, and gives full credit to its study and satisfaction of the language requirements for graduation.
Further, we declare February to be ASL Education Month and will celebrate the culture and experience of the deaf in the United States throughout this month and encourage the University community to join us in questioning, expecting and requiring policy change. We invite students, faculty and administration to move forward academically and morally as we offer access to all who look to the University as a benchmark for diversity and opportunity in Oregon.
Please join us in March as we make change happen and expand our vocabulary and minds, inclusive of those deaf persons who are our family, friends and fellow citizens. For more information and to lend your support and time to this effort, contact us at [email protected]. Join us as we look forward to a day where diversity is assured and access to opportunity for all is the standard.