People of the Eye

Written by Steve Turner (a father of Gallaudet student being arrested)

Thursday, October 26, 2006

I drove to the beautiful campus of UCSD this morning. After arriving at the office of Associate Professor Tom Humphries, I inquired at the desk what his class schedule was. The clerk at the office was struggling and stumbling his way around searching for Tom’s schedule by looking up in the catalogue and his computer to no avail. Another professor walked in and was nice enough to assist the clerk. Sure enough, they found out that Tom was scheduled to teach at 12:30 to 2:00 this afternoon. His office hours were listed from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. and I looked at the clock which said 10:15, so I sat there waiting for one hour and 45 minutes. Still no show! At 12:00 noon I walked over to the Warren Lecture Hall Room 2204. By 12:20, there were about 70 students waiting to enter. Sure enough, at exactly, 12:30, I spotted Tom Humphries arriving with his interpreter. Since, he had started the class already, I decided to wait for the next 1 and half hours pacing back and forth outside. Finally at 1:55 p.m. Tom emerged and I approached him. When he saw and recognized me, his first words were “if you wanted to talk about Gallaudet, then I don’t want to hear”. Of course, I put on a friendly face by saying “I really need to talk to you because we have an emergency situation. I am willing to buy you lunch”. When he saw that I had no intention of attacking him verbally but being amicable, he mentioned that he didn’t have much time to talk due to his other commitments. Of course, I tried my best by engaging in a conversation during the walk from the classroom to his office which took only 15 minutes.

The clerk at the office was struggling and stumbling his way around searching for Tom’s schedule by looking up in the catalogue and his computer to no avail. Another professor walked in and was nice enough to assist the clerk. Sure enough, they found out that Tom was scheduled to teach at 12:30 to 2:00 this afternoon. His office hours were listed from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. and I looked at the clock which said 10:15, so I sat there waiting for one hour and 45 minutes. Still no show! At 12:00 noon I walked over to the Warren Lecture Hall Room 2204. By 12:20, there were about 70 students waiting to enter. Sure enough, at exactly, 12:30, I spotted Tom Humphries arriving with his interpreter. Since, he had started the class already, I decided to wait for the next 1 and half hours pacing back and forth outside. Finally at 1:55 p.m. Tom emerged and I approached him. When he saw and recognized me, his first words were “if you wanted to talk about Gallaudet, then I don’t want to hear”. Of course, I put on a friendly face by saying “I really need to talk to you because we have an emergency situation. I am willing to buy you lunch”. When he saw that I had no intention of attacking him verbally but being amicable, he mentioned that he didn’t have much time to talk due to his other commitments. Of course, I tried my best by engaging in a conversation during the walk from the classroom to his office which took only 15 minutes.

Here are the contents of our dialogue.

Steve: I just want to cover bases with you on what is going on at Gallaudet. I am sure you must’ve already read all about it via email and websites.
Tom: Yes, yes, I did receive many letters and read the blogs from all different websites.

Steve: Why did IKJ order the arrest of his own students?
Tom: No no it is not true. It was they the students who wanted to be arrested. They did plan it themselves. They sat down and challenged to be arrested. They gave out their names and said “here i am, go ahead and arrest me”. so IKJ himself didn’t want the students to be arrested. not him but the students themselves!! cuz they wanted to…

Steve: Are you aware of the ongoing hunger strike?
Tom: Well, it is their decision not ours as we got nothing to do with them deciding to go on hunger strike.

Steve: Where are the BoT while this protest is going on?
Tom: We don’t run Gallaudet as IKJ is doing his job there. He is handling the situation there.

Steve: Is there gonna be a BoT meeting on Sunday?
Tom: Yes, we will have the meeting on Sunday.

Steve: Is it true that there is a “buyout clause” or severance pay which might be hard for BoT to remove JK?
Tom: Steve, money is not the issue here. We could remove JK without having to worry about the money. It is not the issue here.

Steve: What about the injury to the students by the PPD who bulldozed their way into the MSSD gate? Wasn’t that serious incident by IKJ who ordered them?
Tom: I already received an honest report from reliable sources saying that all of this are not true. That guy’s toe just accidentally got stuck underneath the gate which was swung open. There was nothing where PPD did all those ugly things like they wrote all over on the blogs. They tend to twist things and blow things out of proportion.

Steve: Did you know that 82% of the faculty voted against JK? Why can’t the BoT see that and why can’t BoT truly represent the whole deaf world by acting on our protest?
Tom: We already did our job. We did our best. (Steve interrupted – presidential search process is flawed) No, not flawed. I, myself, was not on the search committee. There were 6 from us BoT on the committee. Then there was another 4 from this (sorry I could not recall exactly as there were too much to absorb) and then 4 from that for a total of 14, again 14 (emphasizing) total deaf people on that search committee. (Steve interrupted – IKJ did utter those exact words “I represent the BoT” as evident on one of those videos) yes, Steve, that was a big slip but it was not true. IKJ had nothing to do with us during presidential selection. He stayed out during the whole search – interview – etc. (Steve interrupted – only 7 weeks) no we did all we could and we did all our best. as a matter of fact IKJ himself thought we did choose another one of those 3 final candidates and he himself was surprised when we announced we chose JK. I was not on the selection committee.

Steve: Why can’t BoT look into their hearts and listen to us by removing JK in order to stop hunger strike and everything else before things might become violent, etc. as they knew that JK is not the right person to lead Gallaudet? Elizabeth Zinzer (spelling?) did resign on her own…
Tom: I did talk with JK personally myself. She said she refused to resign.

Steve: Did you read all those letters from well-known people like Dr Davila Bernard Bragg…(interrupted)
Tom: Yes I did read all those but they still could not tell us BoT what to do because we did everything properly and accordingly with presidential search etc. They could not see what happened inside. (Steve interrupted – why was Glenn Anderson not interviewed but Tom ignored as he continued) They didn’t know that our decision to select JK was not flawed.

Steve: Well, how could JK really really lead Gallaudet if she doesn’t have support from faculty, staff, students, etc. ????
Tom: Just today – just just today I got 50, (re-emphasizing) 50 emails who support JK!!!! Hey, i gotta run. I need to go. see ya later

In conclusions, I felt really bad about the whole scenario. I’ve never felt so inadequate. I felt as if I didn’t accomplish anything. I felt like a failure. I am very disappointed. Since there was such so little time, I could not do anything to convince Tom Humphries to sway the vote for removal of JK. I am not too sure if Tom is in support or against, but my gut feelings tell me that he supports JK. Maybe I could be wrong. Tom kept saying that the presidential search was not flawed. He kept denying. In my opinion, I believe that he does innocently and inadvertently think that way but he doesn’t realize that it is flawed to the public’s eye.