The president of the National Association of the Deaf called “totally unnecessary” the arrests Friday night of 133 protesters at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in a dispute with campus administrators. Bobbie Beth Scoggins also urged the school’s board of trustees to take command of a situation that “is out of control.”
Gallaudet students and alumni have taken shifts occupying tents around the campus entrance for the past week. They shut down the campus for three days to protest the selection of former university provost Jane K. Fernandes as the school’s next president. Scoggins’s appearance underscored the impact of the confrontation in the international deaf community. She said sympathizers around the world had erected more than 70 “tent cities” in solidarity with the Gallaudet protesters, four of whom launched a hunger strike at the start of the weekend. “The whole world is with these people here,” said Scoggins.”
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500631.html