Gallaudet Protest may have cost more than 2 million dollars.

In the last post, I’ve pointed out that if the Board of Trustees decided to force JFK to resign, they’d have to pay her 2 million dollars as her lawyers cleverly advised her to put in the contract. Well, the Protest may have already cost Gallaudet more than 2 millions; however, it’s currently hypothetical right now. Here’s why.

First, I’d like to say something about how I felt last night and I would imagine this is how most people feel where such an event has put them to make gasps, cover their mouths with their hands and finally hit them hard and they started to weep. When something like that happens, you know it’s bad.

We just all witnessed something that’s never happened in the 142 years at Gallaudet University and something that’s never happened during the 1988 DPN Protest either, 135 incredibly brave students were arrested.

The emotions just blew to all time high—a sky high—and everyone went into an unbelievable disbelief and was utterly shocked. It was one of those rare moments when everything stopped for a min and we were transfixed on our computer screens, incessantly clicking on the reload button for the latest news from deafread.com, only to find out that we weren’t the only ones clicking down our mouses to death, millions others have done the same thing, which sent the server to crash, had to settle with next two or three servers till our senses and million others finally got what’s really going on.

It wasn’t so about the arrests that broke our hearts; it went much more than that. The place we all have come to know Gallaudet University, the uniqueness around the campus, the sense of belonging that all deaf people feel is gone or rather, destroyed. It feels like Gallaudet University is no longer unique from other places where it is the only large-scale place that ASL is not a minority language there.

Seeing those arrests gave me scary flashbacks what would become of Gallaudet University in the future not so far away from now. It will have interpreters in classrooms, just like every other college and deaf students will no longer see the reason to attend Gallaudet University anymore. ASL will not be a mandatory thing to learn or enforced for the sake of communication standard. Then, Congress will begin to see the same thing, decide to cut off the funding, and tell these students that they can just go home to their local colleges and to give them with ADA laws pamphlets to remind them that they have the right to get an interpreter. Gallaudet University is either closed or re-named to perhaps I.K. Jordan University and its mascot animal will be the Lobsters.

Okay, there I’ve said it, perhaps too extreme in tastes or in ASL, “far-out!” or get the heck out of here! But believe me, this is what most of us fear. All right, let’s ease a bit down on the drama side and explain what the hell I was talking about Gallaudet Protest that may have already cost them more than two million dollars. Well, it’s time to think mathematically.

So, 135 students were arrested. I.K. Jordan and JFK have their names locked on the list. They will be meeting over some lobster bisque soup leftovers from their recent super-fancy dinner. They will discuss if those students should be expelled. And if they were to be expelled from the university, that will cost them a lot of money, my friend. Take a look at this chart from Gallaudet University’s website on tuitions and fees.

The estimated total tuition for a whole semester is $10,735 for an undergraduate student. About $500 more for a graduate student. I’ll just use the UG student figures. Assuming they are expelled and will not return next semester, 135 students times $10,735 is a whopping $1,449,225. Not too far away from 2 million dollars to “buy out” Jane Fernandes. I think many of them are freshmen or second-year students, so they would have come back next year, so I’ll take 100. 100 times $10,735 times 2 (for two semesters) comes to $2,147,000. So, a potential total loss is $3,596,225.

Remember, this is all based on the assumption that I.K. Jordan and Fernandes decide to expel them out of campus. Now, is it worth it? so much for J.K Fernandes and so little for the students.

Think about it, the Board of Trustees.