Paddy Ladd’s keynote speech led to observations and opinions, both in person at the conference and in the comments section of the keynote post on this blog, about whether filming of presentations should be allowed. Naturally, quite a few people felt the conference presentations should be filmed, and rumors spread that control by interpreters was the reason for Dr. Ladd being denied permission to film. Others suggested it was a classic conflict between hearing and deaf, oppressor and oppressed. Yet others noted the inconsistency in policy; Dr. Ladd himself noted in our interview that while he was disturbed by the seeming refusal to allow the filming of his own speech, he also observed that, “However, this problem also occurred at the last two DHI conferences too, which were Deaf-run, which is even worse.”

I had been informed prior to attending the conference that although I was free to take notes, and I had been tapped to do a blog of the conference, with posts summarizing the presentations and activities, I would not be allowed to take pictures during the actual speeches/presentations. This was largely due to legal concerns, but upon reflection, having flash exploding in your eyes would probably be a big distraction for everyone, including the speaker!

I decided in the wake of this controversy and Paddy Ladd’s own comments during the interview with him, partly out of curiosity, and partly out of a sense of fairness, to ask Dr. John Van Cleve, the head of the Gallaudet University Press (which sponsored the conference), and a member of the committee that organized this conference, if he had anything he wanted to add in the way of an explanation or a rebuttal. He took the opportunity to issue the following statement:

“Filming presentations at conferences presents legal and ethical problems. Everyone at a conference that is not a public event has the legal right to deny that their image can be copied and distributed without their permission. This includes not only the presenters and the interpreters, but also people who ask questions, the session chair, and even technical staff who may cross the stage in the performance of their responsibilities. Anyone who is filmed any time, for any reason whatsoever, must be told 1) exactly how the film is going to be used and 2) sign a formal, written, legal release allowing the filming to occur. The release must state the ways the film will be distributed and its purposes, and the release must give the person who will be filmed the opportunity to restrict the distribution of their image. Filming under any other conditions is unethical, and in the United States it is illegal.

Experienced conference organizers are aware of these issues, and they know that in today’s world the distribution of films cannot be controlled. The usual solution to the ethical and legal problems therefore is to deny all filming. This is not an ideal solution, but it is one that allows these kinds of conferences, particularly conferences with professional interpreters on stage, who have a legal and ethical expectation that they will not be filmed, to occur.

The presenters at the “150 Years on Kendall Green” conference knew ahead of time that they could not film. Dr. Greenwald repeated this in his statements at the beginning of the conference, and it was expected that the presenters would therefore follow this rule and respect the rights of other individuals at the conference as well as the legal obligations of Gallaudet University.”

It seems that the decision was made in advance not to allow any recording of this conference whatsoever. There’s still the issue of the captioning, any audio recordings, and other methods, but as far as I know at this point, nothing was retained. This blog, to the best of my knowledge, is the only “official” record. There’s also other mentions of the conference here and there, most notably Barb DiGi’s recollections, at her site, Deaf Progressivism.

As I’ve noted before, the presenters may be adapting their papers for future publication as articles or books. It’s also possible that this conference is the only time we’ll hear or read about these presentations at all.

What interests me here is the inconsistency of this issue. While Ladd and others legitimately note that ASL is a visual language (indeed, *all* signed languages are visual languages) and support filming as a way to preserve signs and Deaf history, Van Cleve also correctly notes that it is a legal issue as well as an ethical and moral issue.

Some may argue that Van Cleve is following established procedures and policies, including those established prior to the conference; others may argue that Ladd has the right to film himself. But I don’t think pointing fingers is the appropriate way to handle this. In fact, I think both Van Cleve and Ladd are right: we need to preserve our history and language, but not at the cost of violating laws and crossing ethical boundaries.

Ladd is also on target about the Deaf History International (DHI) conferences. I’ve told many people, both on-line and off, that I have never seen videotaping or filming of conferences, and I’ve gone to quite a few academic conferences, which are different from social events and cultural festivals. Yet, not too long after I returned from this conference, I was at the ASL Lab at CSUN, looking over their videotape holdings, and found a few from the very first DHI conference in 1991 at Gallaudet University. I viewed one, and sure enough, the actual presentations were there. So there is an imbalance in DHI’s own policies; while there were films made of the first gathering, apparently that’s not the case now.

So what to do about this? I think the best solution is not to blame Van Cleve or Ladd, DHI or Gallaudet. That does nothing– all it accomplishes is negativity, hand-wringing, and yet another issue for us to all chew on (and ultimately do nothing about). Rather, I think two communities could work together to help formulate policies and guidelines. Once they’ve done so, they could then take their proposed solutions to Gallaudet, which should then institute a formal policy for future conferences, especially those revolving around Deaf culture and history. The two groups I have in mind are Deaf Academics, a community of Deaf people seeking terminal degrees in their chosen profession, and deaf filmmakers. These rising academics have attended conferences and are familiar with (or soon will be!) the inner workings of academia, and can see both the needs and practices of academia and the needs of the Deaf community. Thus they’re in a unique position to help shape policy for the future. Deaf filmmakers are of course familiar with their craft, and can aid in helping to outline guidelines and policies that the academics craft.

Maybe these aren’t the two best groups; maybe they won’t want to assume responsibility. But it’s an idea, and a starting place that’s worth exploring. At the very least, instead of being reactive about this situation, it’s time for us to start practicing what quite a few of us have been preaching of late: be proactive. Future policies won’t only benefit Gallaudet; they can also benefit regional, state, and national groups, other universities and programs (CSUN and NTID, for example), and perhaps lead to a fuller understanding of how to craft guidelines that will meet the needs of everyone involved.