From directors Nyle DiMarco (a Deaf activist making his directing debut) & Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for “Superman,” Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie) comes a lesser-known chapter of the civil rights movement that directly led to the Americans with Disabilities Act only two years after these events took place.
During eight days in the spring of 1988, students at the world’s only Deaf university, Gallaudet in Washington, D.C., decided that enough was enough in terms of the presidency of their school. With two Deaf candidates and one hearing option (and about 125 years of only having hearing university presidents), the students didn’t just protest—they started a revolution that continues to this day.
Deaf President Now! centers on four student leaders who found a way to take a disorganized, angry mob of students and other representatives of the Deaf community and turn that into a working political action group. Relayed to audiences primarily through American Sign Language, the film uses a wealth of archival news footage from both local D.C. networks and the eventual national news coverage this protest received. It then goes day by day through both the escalating issue of leadership of the university but also the history of the Deaf experience in America throughout the year.
The film is downright tragic and traumatic in the way in which it portrays educators forcing Deaf children to take speech classes, and those kids who couldn’t speak were considered less intelligent. ASL was rarely an option to children through the first half of the 20th century (the institution was effectively created by President Abraham Lincoln, who signed into a law the creation of the school and its ability to give out degrees).
The filmmakers also put us in the senses of the subjects by dropping out sound for specific moment to show what the Deaf students could and couldn’t hear during these triumphant moments. These four student leaders didn’t always see eye to eye on the issues or the means of make changes, but in the end, their collective action made them a force to be reckoned with and realize a dream long deferred.
Often, the pursuit of rights takes time, but Deaf President Now! is a rousing, beautifully told chronicle of an example of swift action resulting in lightning-fast change. Here’s hoping the examples on display in this film lead young people today to move swiftly when injustice rears its ugly head in the very near future.
The film is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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