New Show on Gallaudet students, and, Part I of Deaf as Disability Series

I just discovered that MTV will be airing a new show focused on the lives of college kids at Gallaudet University, which, as you may or may not know, is the only college for the deaf and hard of hearing.  It's called "Quiet Campus" and will be aired on mtvU, which apparently is a MTV channel focused on college students (which confuses me - isn't regular MTV focused on college students?)  Anyway, here's the press release, and here's a blog post in the NY Times with some quotes from some of the students featured in Quiet Campus.

I think this will be cool to watch.  The premise of the show is apparently that deaf kids aren't that different from "typical" kids - they're wrestling with the same issues, have many of the same concerns.  I think it will attract viewers who want insight into a world that they're likely unfamiliar with.  And if Switched at Birth is any indication, the series could attract quite a number of viewers.

HOWEVER, my next set of thoughts about this show (Quiet Campus) is that inescapably, this is going to highlight differences between deaf kids and hearing kids.  Inevitably!  Deaf kids use ASL, and have alternate ways of using technology.  Alarms clocks in Gallaudet, I'll just bet, involve flashing lights and vibrations - not songs or musical sounds from your iPhone.  Being deaf is different, in the sense that being any kind of minority is different from the way the majority of people deal with the world.

This gets to something that I see as a big tension in the deaf/Deaf community.  One set of people who have no hearing ("Deaf") view being Deaf as being part of a separate cultural community, one with its own language (ASL), history, and current culture.  Another set of people who have no hearing ("deaf") do not wish to participate in a Deaf community - they learn to speak and read lips, they rely on cochlear implants, and they attempt to integrate into mainstream US culture as much as possible.  So, I suppose it's like any minority community - there are those who emphasize the differences from the majority culture, and are those who integrate.

And yet for the Deaf, there is another issue that doesn't face other minorities - there is something more to the difference between Deaf and hearing.  There is in fact, some kind of dis-ability; Deaf people cannot use the communication modality - hearing and speaking - that the majority uses.  And this is why we as a society have chosen to support the Deaf by (a) recognizing that Deaf people need technical accommodations, like TTY systems, and better access to the 911 system and (b) providing educational services, in the form of IDEA supports and publicly funded schools for the Deaf.

But a lot of Deaf people seem really uncomfortable with the idea that they are "disabled".  Their view is "hey, there's nothing wrong with me, I can do anything that typical people can, I don't need to be fixed".  I certainly sympathize with this view - I have trouble labeling my own daughter as "disabled".  However, in order for my daughter to receive special ed services, she must fall within one of the legally defined categories of disability - that's just how we as a society have organized these programs.  So, too, with deafness - it's one of the categories defined under the ADA, the IDEA, and all the other laws as a disability.

So, what do you think?  Is being Deaf a disability?  Is it not?  Is the issue actually one where we need to throw out the disability/ability categories entirely?  What should replace it?

I plan to keep talking about these issues, so check back soon!