14

Advocacy for Access

I WAS LOVING ROCHESTER. Our house, which we’d found at the beginning of our second year in the city, was back in that first subdivision we’d liked from the start, the Village Green in Penfield, even though it was farther from my work than our first apartment.

When we’d first moved to Rochester in 1970, I became closely acquainted with Alice Beardsley, a seasoned leader of the Rochester Civic Association of the Deaf (RCAD), and the Empire State Association of the Deaf (ESAD), (which is an affiliate of the NAD). While Alice served two terms as ESAD president, she chaired the New York State Temporary Commission for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals. I was in awe of Alice, who had grace and was always cheerful with a radiant smile. She was an excellent leader who worked well with her colleagues and influenced people to do their parts. She was well connected to legislators, state agency officials, and other politicians.

As a young member of the NTID faculty, I was very eager to become involved in community activities. Alice encouraged me to participate in RCAD and ESAD activities. She also accompanied me to my first RCAD meeting.

I was sitting next to her when the RCAD secretary, Claude Samuelson, began reading the meeting minutes to the membership. He had one hand in his pocket and used his other hand to fingerspell all of the minutes without moving his lips or using any facial/body expressions. I stood there in amazement; I had never seen such rapid fingerspelling, nor someone fingerspelling an entire presentation. I couldn’t understand him and looked helplessly at Alice. She laughed and interpreted the entire text in sign language for me. “How in the world can you understand him?” I asked. She said, “I’m used to him. I’m sure you’ll pick it up with time,” she assured me. She was right. After attending a few meetings and conversing with the secretary, I got accustomed to it. I later learned that Claude and Alice had attended RSD, which used fingerspelling and oral speech as their primary method of communication and teaching, thus giving the method its name: the Rochester Method. I’m forever grateful to Alice for introducing me to the Rochester Deaf community.

Vicki and I on the ESAD convention planning committee.

Over time, I became more actively involved in RCAD meetings, and I volunteered to serve on a committee. Eventually elected as the RCAD secretary, I represented the Rochester community at ESAD board meetings and conferences. Alice introduced me to outstanding leaders with the ESAD through its affiliations in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Rome, Utica, Binghamton, Albany, and New York City. We were engaged in a variety of legislative issues and made contacts with key legislators and state officials in Albany. We also worked with the commissioner of the New York State Temporary Commission for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals.

Our mission was to help deaf people through advocacy for access to full participation in the larger society, including in education, technology, jobs, health care, and many other social realms. Oftentimes, we’d hold special events for the general population in local communities to increase awareness of the Deaf community, deaf people, and of ASL and Deaf culture.

One significant legislative bill among many was the Baby Bill, which was passed by the state legislators and signed into law by the governor. This law mandated that early hearing screening be administered to all newborns in hospitals in New York state.

LIFE WAS FULL! Stephanie was home with us, filling our house with more love and fun and conversation. Vicki was busy with the children, busy advocating and working for Deaf rights and services, and, as always, busy with house projects and with her many friends. For my part, I was busy making sure that the students at NTID, who by that year numbered around 650, were fully supported in their learning, in addition to all of my volunteer service with RCAD.

NTID had started in 1968 with seventy students. The plan was to add 100 new students each year until it reached a goal of 750 students. Later, when the rubella epidemic hit the United States in 1963, causing a surge of deaf babies called the “rubella bulge,” NTID anticipated that there would be a corresponding increase of college-age students in the early 1980s, a prediction that proved right. In the 1980s, enrollment grew to over 1,400 students.

ONE DAY, Dr. E. Ross Stuckless, director for research at NTID, came to my office.

“Would you consider enrolling in a doctoral program in education at the University of Rochester?” he asked me. “If that sounds at all interesting to you, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Jack Miller at the University of Rochester School of Education.” Although I’d already been accepted into a doctoral program at Gallaudet, the idea of studying closer to home was more appealing, since we were still in the process of adopting our daughter. “Yes,” I told Dr. Stuckless. “I’d love to meet with Dr. Miller to learn more.” All told, four of us, all deaf NTID faculty members, met with Dr. Miller, who told us that if we applied, we’d be accepted.

My formal doctoral studies at the University of Rochester finally began in the fall of 1976. I was initially admitted to the educational psychology program. Though I enjoyed the program very much, after one year, I learned that none of the coursework I’d completed for my previous master’s degree would be accepted. I would have to take additional courses outside of the program to earn my degree. I decided to transfer to the Curriculum and Teaching Department, with an emphasis in math and computer science education, and they accepted all of my previous master’s coursework.

After one year of studying, Harry Lang and I were the only remaining deaf doctoral students. The other two had left for different reasons. Harry and I took a few courses together and so we shared interpreting services.

Kathy Gillies, the assigned interpreter, and I developed a strong bond as we worked closely with professors to ensure my full participation in the classes. Each class involved a group discussion with the professor speaking and allowing students to jump in with comments or questions. In the beginning, I felt lost because the professor talked too fast, and there was a lot of cross talk, which made it difficult for me to contribute. Kathy and I met with one professor and explained the problem. The professor agreed with us on a protocol: only one person would talk at a time; everyone would wait for the interpreter to finish interpreting (interpreters have to hear what the speaker said for a few seconds before beginning to interpret); and students should first raise their hands and wait to be called upon before speaking. It worked so well that Kathy and I worked with other professors using the newly adopted protocol.

Harry and I enrolled in an advanced statistics class taught by Jack Miller, who had proactively taken ASL classes so that he could communicate with us on a one-on-one basis. The day before our first class, he told us that he would sign for himself throughout the course because he felt that he had enough signing skills to teach the class. Harry and I exchanged a glance. It was clear to both of us that Dr. Miller’s idea would be a disaster. We tried to talk him out of it, but Dr. Miller insisted, promising that if it didn’t work out well, he would yield to the interpreter present in the class. Not only were we worried about understanding his signing, we were also concerned about how our hearing classmates would react to this plan. To our surprise, they agreed to it as an experiment.

Dr. Miller got through the entire semester on his own! Yes, he was still in the elementary stage of learning to use sign language, but he did his best to use proper signs and always asked for feedback. We could follow him because signing forced him to slow down so we could better read his lips while peripherally watching his signs, fingerspelling, facial expressions, and body language.

When we cautiously probed our hearing classmates about how they felt about Dr. Miller signing, we learned that they felt the same way we did: They appreciated how signing forced Dr. Miller to slow down and speak clearly. He made the class very interesting and fun—and we learned a great deal. We all got As.

Around this time, my mother told me via TTY that my father was very depressed and unhappy about his job at Metz Baking Company. This conglomerate bakery had purchased the smaller bakery where my father had worked for many years. Two years earlier, my mother explained to me, my father’s supervisor had reassigned him to work at the dock, where he had to lift and move heavy baskets of bread and baked goods into trucks. My father had a long history of shoulder dislocations stemming from his sporting days at ISD, and so he asked to go back to his original job as a baker. The supervisor refused and laid him off. Naturally, my father was upset, but after several weeks, the supervisor called my parents’ next-door neighbor to tell my father to return to work. Excited for the chance to work and earn money again, my father got up at 2 a.m. to be at work by 3 a.m. After a few days, though, he was once again laid off. This pattern, my mother told me, had continued for the next few months.

My father never understood what was going on. He tried to talk with the supervisor but was told that he was now a “jobber,” which meant that he would be called in only when he was needed or as a substitute when other bakers took vacations or were out sick. My father lost all of his benefits—sick days, vacation days, and, most importantly, his pension. The jobber arrangement dragged on for the next two years, and this was hard on my parents financially. My mother continued to work, and my father would apply for unemployment benefits on the days he didn’t go into work at the bakery.

That was the first time I’d heard about any of this, and I was horrified. I immediately flew to Sioux City to talk with my father. He tried to explain what happened, even though he didn’t fully understand what was going on or why it had happened to him.

“Does your bakery have a union?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Have you ever talked with your union steward?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and I realized he wasn’t sure what I was talking about.

“Have you ever seen any literature, any paperwork, about your union membership, Dad?” I asked him. Yes, there was a little booklet he had about the union. He retrieved it from a drawer in the kitchen, and I carefully studied the policies and procedures.

As I read, I realized that many of his rights as a union member had been violated and that something had to be done about it. I made an appointment with the union steward, and my father and I went downtown to meet with him. Before the meeting, I wrote down everything I wanted to cover. I described how the bakery had treated my father over the past two years and how they had violated his rights as a union member. The steward reviewed my father’s case and was dumbfounded; he had not been aware of any of the incidents. He didn’t like what he learned at all, so while we were still in his office, he called the company’s corporate secretary and had a long talk.

The very next day, the union steward, my father, and I went to the corporate secretary’s office. After another long talk, the corporate secretary called the supervisor into the office to inquire about my father’s employment status. The supervisor didn’t have a good explanation, so the corporate secretary reinstated my father as a “legitimate” and full-time baker. My father received back pay for the past two years, along with all of his accumulated sick and vacation days. His pension also was resurrected, and these two years were added to his years of employment. I knew my father was fortunate to have his job back, but I wondered how many other deaf people were in the same position without someone to help out. This incident instilled in me the importance of being sensitive and caring to all of the people with whom I worked and also the importance of fighting to secure rights for deaf workers.

IN THE FALL OF 1977, I was appointed as the NAD Region 1 Representative on the NAD Board of Directors. It was a wonderful experience being on a board with outstanding leaders from all over the United States. I was the official representative for thirteen northeastern state associations in my region, and I conducted regional meetings and workshops at regional conferences and during NAD conferences. I learned a great deal about the internal operations of the NAD, including its branch office in Indianapolis, which was operated by Gary W. Olsen. We grieved the former NAD executive director Frederick Schreiber’s untimely death in the summer of 1979.

“Would you consider running for president?” the board asked me. We were in a small meeting room in Rochester, making preparations for the NAD centennial conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1980. I had gotten to know many of these people well through my civic and advocacy work on local, state, and national levels. “I’d be grateful if you’d help me with my campaign then,” I told Phil Bravin since we had already developed a close relationship through our involvement as board members and officers of the ESAD. Phil, who had a full head of thick, bright red fluffy hair and large square glasses, was a manager with IBM and a Gallaudet alumnus. He later went on to be one of only four deaf trustees on the Gallaudet College (later University) Board of Trustees during the tumultuous student protests in the late 1980s, when he stepped up as a much-needed liaison between the students and the university’s administration. I had and continue to have tremendous respect for Phil as a humanitarian and a charismatic leader. I always enjoyed having deep and introspective chats with him about everything in life, our careers, and our families.

With Phil Bravin, my campaign manager for the NAD presidency.

As soon as Phil agreed to become my campaign chair, we recruited wonderful volunteers who designed my campaign materials and developed campaign strategies. We sent campaign letters to all members of the NAD and all officers of affiliated state associations approximately nine months prior to the election at the conference. After we organized the campaign committee, I learned that a good friend of mine, Larry Forestal, had decided to run for the presidency as well. Regardless, we continued to remain friends throughout the campaign and after the election.

Our campaign committee members and volunteers worked hard for my candidacy. We produced follow-up letters, fliers, and posters throughout the week and hosted campaign parties each evening during the conference in Cincinnati. It was a very stressful time for both teams. Larry had many friends who attended Gallaudet College with him who supported him. Soon my team learned he also had several state association delegates committed to vote for him before the conference.

On our side, Phil and his committee lobbied the state association delegates to “de-commit” themselves and maintain an open mind about both candidates. Phil even encouraged some of the delegates to call their respective state association presidents/officers to seek their permission to de-commit. This way, they would be given the freedom to get to know both candidates before declaring their votes at the end of the week. Simultaneously, Phil and his team continued campaigning on my behalf with the remaining undecided delegates as well.

My platform was threefold. The highest priority was to continue to press CBS to caption TV programs during prime time. The other two priorities were creating a staff position for youth programs within the NAD and developing a coalition with national consumer and professional organizations serving deaf and hard of hearing people to advocate for human rights, ensure that jobs were available and accessible, and improve our quality of life. Larry’s platform, to the best of my recollection, was focused primarily on enhancing educational opportunities for deaf students, protecting residential schools for deaf children, and preserving ASL and Deaf heritage, among other important topics.

The Hurwitz family at a CBS protest in 1982 for the captioning of prime-time programs on a rainy day in Rochester, New York.

Vicki and I were somewhat frustrated when we saw what we would call “dirty” politics, such as influencing, promising, misquoting or misrepresenting facts, and trading votes with and among the delegates. We quickly learned that it was a part of the game. However, it got so bad that by the middle of the week, I was somewhat disillusioned and seriously considered withdrawing. Thankfully, Phil persuaded me to stay on.

“We’re making good progress with undecided delegates, Alan,” he told me. “We’ll get as many of them as we can to your evening parties, to give them a chance to get to know you. When they get to know you, they’ll want to vote for you.” At the parties, Phil and his team kept watch and told me to approach and strike up conversations with certain delegates. Phil advised me not to focus on persuading them, but rather on having good conversations with them about their issues, concerns, or thoughts. Vicki and I agreed to go along with the game plan. Vicki and Phil’s wife, Judy, worked together at Kinko’s to get peel-off tags printed with “Vote ALAN HURWITZ for President-Elect” distributed to delegates.

Larry and I agreed that no matter what happened, we’d stay friends throughout the campaign. If Larry won, then I’d go to him and give him a big hug and congratulate him. On the other hand, if I won, I’d make the first move to go to Larry and hug him and to encourage him to remain committed to NAD’s mission. The night before the election, we found out Larry and his team had held a previctory party. That confidence worried me, but Phil told me not to sweat it, and we continued to host events and have conversations with everyone. I didn’t know until after the election that Phil continued to work throughout that night.

The next morning during the election, one by one, the delegates were called to announce their votes for either candidate. My team’s hard work paid off: I edged Larry out by just three votes. I learned later that the night before, I was down by three or four votes, but overnight, several delegates switched sides—seven of mine went to Larry, and thirteen of his came over to my side. I have no idea how it happened, but I give the credit to Phil and his committee for their persistence and hard work. Immediately after the announcement was made, I walked over to Larry, and we both hugged each other. “Great campaign!” I said. “Please, Larry, come work with our team, will you?”

Vicki and I after I was elected president-elect of the NAD.

He agreed and kept his word. Two years later, while I was the governing president at the next conference in Baltimore, he ran again for president-elect and won. It was a bittersweet victory for him, but I was happy he won.

IN 1880 IN CINCINNATI, the NAD formed as an advocacy organization for signing deaf people as a response to the Milan Congress that outright banned the use of sign language in educational settings. Up until 1968, the NAD president could run for an unlimited number of terms. After one president, Byron B. Burnes, served for eighteen years, a term limit was introduced, and the office of president-elect was created. Under the new system, the elected officer served on the board for six years—two years as president-elect, then two years as president, and finally two years as past president. This system continued until 1986 when the board changed the bylaws so that a person could serve three consecutive terms as president.

After my experience as president, I fully supported the change. As president-elect for the first two years of my six-year term, I had very little opportunity to engage in leadership activities. When my term as president commenced, I faced a significant turnover of board members due to term limits. It took me approximately six months to work with and get the board attuned to my vision and strategic plan for the remainder of my presidential term, but I discovered that there wasn’t enough time for me to achieve all of my goals and priorities. With this experience, I realized the next president-elect needed to be well prepared in advance. During the last six months of my two-year term, I started to prepare Larry for his role as president.

We developed several important position papers related to the cochlear implant controversy, education of deaf and hard of hearing students, television captioning, and interpreting services during my presidency. I once again commissioned Phil Bravin to work with the CBS executives on the captioning of its prime time television programs—Cagney and Lacey, Designing Women, Newhart, Magnum P.I., and so forth.

We also created a full-time director position to support all youth programs, including Junior NAD, Youth Leadership Camp, and Collegiate NAD. I traveled extensively to state association conferences and represented the NAD at several national meetings related to the education of deaf students, television captioning, interpreting evaluation and certifications, and other pertinent issues. I also represented the NAD at the World Federation of the Deaf Congress in Varna, Bulgaria. I wrote monthly articles for the NAD publications The Deaf American and the NAD Broadcaster. I was on a fast track since I knew that I’d have a very short time to produce results during my presidency. The last two years of my six-year term was somewhat quiet while I served in a consultant role to support Larry as the next president. Currently, I serve as president emeritus of the NAD, which is an honorary role awarded by the board to one of the past presidents, normally based on seniority.

Past presidents of NAD. From left to right: Gertie Galloway, Ralph White, myself, Jess Smith, Larry Forestal, Bob Sanderson, Larry Newman, Don Pettingill, and Mervin Garretson.

THANKS TO A decoder attached to our television, we were excited to watch the few prime-time TV programs that were captioned, including the very funny Three’s Company. One of our other early favorite programs was Dynasty, which was on Wednesday nights.

In 1981, I flew to Washington, DC, early on a Wednesday morning to meet with congressional staff members all day long. I made sure my flight would get me home in time to watch Dynasty. Back then, deaf people had such limited access to captioned entertainment that it was common for us to place a very high value on a TV show. I arrived at the airport on time only to find that the plane was overbooked, and I was bumped off and scheduled for a flight the next morning. What? I panicked and argued with the airline agent: “I must get home tonight!” I told her. “I need to be on this flight.”

“All I can do,” she told me, “is put you on a wait list with a lot of other people ahead of you, sir.”

Thirty minutes later, I learned that I would definitely miss the flight, so I marched back to the agent at the counter.

“I must get on this plane. I am deaf and my wife is deaf and I have no way to contact my wife to explain. I’m concerned about my family!” Finally, my pleas were getting to her. “I can try one last time,” she said.

She boarded the plane herself and asked if anyone would be willing to get off the flight in return for the reward of an additional flight at no cost. One passenger volunteered to get off, and I was allowed to take his seat. The plane left a bit late and arrived in Rochester barely in time for me to run to my car in the parking lot and speed home to watch Dynasty.