Sign On Now

to sign petition - go to: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/RMAGBELL/petition.html

Reasons for the removal of the plaque & dorm name in AG Bell's honor:
1. AG Bell's ideals were to:
- forbid the use of ASL in schools
- raze Deaf schools
- prohibit d/Deaf publications, organizations and conventions
- stop d/Deaf and d/Deaf marriages
- prevent d/Deaf offsprings
- prohibit d/Deaf people from becoming teachers

2. promoted a device (the telephone) that would not be accessible for d/Deaf people for almost one century resulting in a huge amount of job discrimination for d/Deaf people
- accused of plagiarizing the patent and engaging in bribery to claim the title as the inventor of the telephone - See "The Telephone Gambit" by Seth Shulman
- made no attempt to invent any device that would allow d/Deaf people to communicate via long distances
- ignored George Veditz's inquiry "I wonder if you could be induced to turn your attention to a sort of television that will do for the eye what the telephone does for the ear." 1915
http://memory.loc.gov/mss/magbell/169/16910212/0001i.jpg

3. Caused tension, conflict, and communication barriers between oral and ASL d/Deaf people

See O&B Coalition vlog introducing the petition
O& B Coalition request for feedback and possible new names for the dorm

Sources re: AG Bell's oral/aural only approach as destructive to ASL, Deaf culture and d/Deaf people:
Dr. Edward's article on the dorm/plaque in Bell's honor
Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign Against Sign Language by Dr. Douglas Baynton
Mask of Benevolence: Disabiling the Deaf Community by Dr. Harlan Lane
The Twain Shall Never Meet: The Communications Debate by Richard Winefield
A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America by Dr. Van Cleve and Dr. Crouch

NOTE: all the above authors are hearing scholars.