The Rocky Mountain Deaf School saga continues! Deaf Echo writer Tara Schupner-Congdon reports on new updates in denverpost.com!

Mansplaining has now become mainstream  – that phenomenon of an arrogant man explaining what he thinks he knows about a subject to a woman who knows more than he does about the subject. Or as writer Rebecca Solnit notes, the “intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of (the male) gender gets stuck.” I’ve experienced my share of mansplaining, but in one of my lines of work, I get a different [...]

Effects of professors’ language choice at Gallaudet When the professor asked her to stay after class, Melissa felt her pulse quicken. She had always been uncomfortable with some of this professor’s behavior. She knew she should speak up and ask him to stop, but for a student to confront a professor was risky, especially before grades were posted. It did not seem to be a wise decision as she considered [...]

    Check out this awesome new paralympics commercial! And when you do, ask yourselves… if “disabled” people had always been represented in this manner, would deaf people still face the social difficulties (employment, education, etc) that they do today?

  During this summer of the Olympics, my Facebook friends have “shared” a particular picture of Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee Olympic runner.  I’m sure you’ve seen this picture – it is a really sweet photo.  In it, you see Pistorius, crouched in a running stance, looking down with a broad, white-toothed grin at an angelic-looking little girl toddling along on “blades” just like those Pistorius has. The picture simultaneously evokes [...]

  In her 2008 Masters thesis, Tiffany Tuccoli states: “…hearing privileges are advantages or entitlements that are enjoyed by people who can hear which are denied to those who are Deaf. These advantages give hearing people power and authority to decide how society should be designed (p. 23).” In exploring this further we have drafted an introduction to our experiences in working together as a Deaf-hearing team, a list of [...]

Since I wrote my column, “Stupid Deaf People: 2090 Coalition Behaving Badly,” a follow-up to “Not in My Backyard: The Truth About the Fight for a Deaf School’s Future,” much has happened in Rocky Mountain Deaf School’s struggle to secure a property on which it can build a facility of its own. The 2090 Coalition, which has been circulating a petition seeking to overturn the Lakewood City Council’s rezoning of [...]

The National Association of the Deaf on Friday released a statement declaring its unequivocal support for the Rocky Mountain Deaf School in its battle for a new home in Lakewood, Colorado. Chief Executive Officer Howard Rosenblum, in response to my e-mail request for comment, said NAD staff and board members previously were “aware of some of the issues regarding the schools’ attempt to purchase land through social media, but are [...]

Since I wrote my column about Rocky Mountain Deaf School’s battle with 2090 Coalition, a number of people have reported misconduct or deception by the coalition’s members and petition circulators. Lakewood citizens have written letters about their experiences – including one in which a coalition supporter referred to “stupid deaf people” – and even captured video of a circulator lying in order to obtain a signature. The behavior of coalition members and supporters [...]

    In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, a battle is unfolding that could have implications for the future of deaf education. During a week when much of the Deaf community’s attention was elsewhere, a small charter school went head to head with a local neighborhood group, with the future of hundreds of deaf children at stake. The Rocky Mountain Deaf School won that clash, but the [...]