witness history spoke to dr irving king jordan.deaf — i can't hear a jet engine, i can't hear anything. right now i'm working with a sign language interpreter, sarah, so's sitting front of me next to the camera, so instead of hearing your questions, i am seeing sarah's signs. newsreader: gallaudet college has i been the centre of deaf education | in america since1847. in 1987 the president at that time stepped down. right away there was a push for the board to recognise that the next president should be a deaf individual. so they narrowed it down to three finalists. two of us were deaf and one was hearing. i have a lot to bring to the university but i also have a lot to learn from it, and that process must start right away. the board of trustees voted to name elisabeth zinser the seventh president of gallaudet. dr zinser had a lot of experience but she didn't know anything about deafness. and that's when i guess you could say the protests started. someone had the bright idea to bring buses to block the gates. the rallying cry was "