Deaf President Now vs. DeafBlind Leadership Now

May 2, 2026

By Morrison

In March 1988, the Deaf community reshaped history through Deaf President Now (DPN), a movement defined by unity, courage, and the insistence that Deaf people must lead Deaf institutions. When Gallaudet University’s Board of Trustees chose a hearing candidate, Elisabeth Zinser, over two qualified Deaf finalists, students, faculties, and community members shut down the campus, marched, and organized with clear demands: the appointment of a Deaf president, the resignation of the Board chair, a majority‑Deaf Board, and no retaliation against protesters. After one week of sustained action, the Board conceded to all four demands and appointed Dr. I. King Jordan as the first Deaf president in the university’s 124‑year history. DPN became a global symbol of disability rights and a reminder that progress is not granted by systems of power, it won because communities stood together.

Today, the DeafBlind community is fighting for the same principle through the DeafBlind Leadership Now (DBLN) movement. DBLN emerged on July 22, 2024, when a hearing‑sighted person was appointed Executive Director of the Helen Keller National Center (HKNC), despite qualified DeafBlind finalists. This decision is part of a longstanding pattern: since HKNC’s origins in the 1950s, it has never had a DeafBlind Executive Director, even though DeafBlind leaders have applied or expressed interest for decades. In response, a DeafBlind‑only petition, circulated by John Lee Clark, gathered 262 DeafBlind signatures within ten days. That petition made four core demands: appoint a DeafBlind Executive Director; separate HKNC from Helen Keller Services; create a Board with at least 70% DeafBlind members; and ensure no retaliation against anyone participating in civil action. The petition was delivered to Helen Keller Services and the U.S. Department of Education on August 6, 2024. DBLN is not about a single hiring decision; it is a movement insisting that DeafBlind people must lead institutions that shape DeafBlind lives. However, to this day, the demands have not been met… 

The contrast between how DPN was supported and how DBLN is being received is painful and revealing. During DPN, the Deaf community mobilized with extraordinary unity. No one was told to stay away. No one was threatened for standing up. No one was instructed to remain silent. The community understood that their liberation required solidarity, visibility, and courage. Today, as DeafBlind people organize for leadership, access, and structural change, we are too often met with silence, avoidance, punishment, or quiet discouragement. In some spaces, DeafBlind people and their allies have been pressured not to participate in protests or public actions. While these pressures may not always be documented in policy, they are felt in whispered warnings, implied consequences, and the fear that standing with us could jeopardize one’s job or relationships with powerful institutions.

This reality became sharply felt the day I stood alone in the rain outside the State House while the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community celebrated indoors. A month earlier, our DeafBlind community’s event in that same space had been quietly canceled without truth, transparency or accountability, yet the celebration for others proceeded without hesitation. Standing there… cold, soaked, while the signs clung to the pavement, I felt the weight of a truth I have written about many times: systems designed by sighted, hearing, able‑bodied people, and the deaf community continue to harm us, and too often our own communities enable that harm. Yes. There are those who are DeafBlind with internalized audism, vidism, and distantism who are turning away from the community, this movement. The silence that day was not just absence; it reflected internalized ableism, fear of proximity to being DeafBlind, and a desire to maintain access to power and resources, even at the expense of solidarity.

Deaf history shows that every major advancement, from the establishment of Deaf schools and organizations to the victory of DPN, was built on collective resistance. Deaf people did not win by aligning with oppressive structures, they won by challenging them together. They believed in a shared future, not individual survival. They understood that liberation is communal. That understanding is what is missing when DeafBlind people are left to stand alone, to fend for ourselves when they once were in the place we are in now.

The DeafBlind community is not asking for charity or sympathy. We are asking for the same solidarity the Deaf community once needed. We are asking for the same courage that fueled DPN. We are asking for the same recognition that leadership must come from lived experience, not from those who simply hold institutional authority. We are asking the Deaf community to remember that they, too, were once dismissed as “not ready,” “not capable,” or “not qualified.” When those same narratives are now used to justify passing over DeafBlind leaders, it is not only harmful, it contradicts the very history the Deaf community honors.

The Deaf community had its turn. You fought. You prevailed. The world changed because you stood together and refused to accept hearing control over your institutions. Now it is our turn, and we cannot do this alone. The DeafBlind community is smaller, vulnerable (but mighty in unity), more dispersed, and faces additional barriers in transportation, communication, and access that make organizing far more complex. We do not share the same sighted privileges and this means the Deaf community had to succeed. We need our Deaf siblings to remember what it felt like to demand justice from a system that refused to see you, and to recognize that we are now in that position.

As we enter DeafBlind Awareness Month in June, this call becomes even more urgent. This month is meant to honor DeafBlind culture, language, leadership, and contributions. It should not be a time when DeafBlind people are silenced, punished, or discouraged from participating in their own movement. This includes our sighted allies who wanted so much to participate but were experiencing fear in doing so. On June 1st and June 2nd, once again as a DeafBlind community member, we need your help in organizing and leading peaceful protests as part of this broader struggle for DeafBlind leadership and structural change. We are asking organizations, agencies, and community leaders to allow DeafBlind people to participate without fear of retaliation, job consequences, or professional punishment. The same for our sighted allies. Standing for justice should never cost someone their livelihood or reputation.

DeafBlind Awareness Month should be a space for solidarity, not suppression; for courage, not compliance (especially when the very compliances are being broken and ignored by the system); for community, not control. If the Deaf community believes in the legacy of DPN, this is the moment to honor that legacy by standing with us, not against us, not in silence, and not from a safe distance. Standing with us today does not require shutting down a university or marching on Capitol Hill. It requires presence, integrity, and the willingness to say: “We stood for ourselves in 1988. Now we stand with you.” It requires rejecting decisions rooted in ableism, fear, and institutional loyalty, and choosing community over convenience, justice over comfort, and truth over silence.

The DeafBlind community is rising, striving to rise, but we are… We are reclaiming our identity, our culture, our leadership, our access, our space, and our future. But we cannot build this movement in isolation. If you believe in DPN, then you believe in DBLN. If you believe Deaf people deserve Deaf leadership and access to ASL, then you believe DeafBlind people deserve DeafBlind leadership and access to Protactile. If you believe in justice, then you believe in showing up.For those who want to support this movement directly, by learning more, sharing information, or making a donation, you can visit DeafBlind Leadership Now at: https://deafblindleadershipnow.org. It takes a village, it really does… and right now, the DeafBlind community needs that village to remember its own history and to stand with us as we fight for ours.