Student supporters of American Sign Language classes protested outside Satterfield Hall Thursday in a “Silent Standoff” using sign language and signs that read, “Make your cuts somewhere else,” “Save sign language,” “Can you hear us now?” and “Stop discrimination now.”

During the rally, Bethany Stahler and Drew Hellebrand went inside to deliver a petition against the restrictions to Jennifer Larson, chair of the Modern and Classical Language Studies department.

Stahler, senior American Sign Language major, said although nothing has changed in terms of lifting restrictions, they were able to make the administration see how serious they are.

“She didn’t tell us ‘OK, fine’; she didn’t give us any kind of changes there on the spot,” Stahler said. “But they realized, they’ve all realized, it’s getting a lot of attention from students and affecting a lot of people so they want to do something.”

Earlier this semester, the MCLS department restricted American Sign Language courses to only ASL majors and minors, thereby eliminating the possibility for students to take the classes as an elective. Only Kent State’s main campus was affected by the change.

Stahler said the goal of the rally was to make the administration see that students are not accepting the restrictions.

“We just wanted to say ‘Hey, you can’t just get away with this, we care, we don’t want this to happen,’” she said. “We know budget cuts happen, we understand that, but this is unfair to us, this is unfair to everyone at Kent State.”

Stahler said she and Hellebrand, senior justice studies major, discussed the issue with Larson, and she agreed to set up a meeting with Timothy Moerland, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to work out a solution.

The rally outside was aimed at showing the administration the support the major has and how much students have benefited from it, Hellebrand said.

“The purpose is to be silent, to have a silent standoff and communicate using American sign language to demonstrate to the administration how much we’ve learned from the program, and the value of having the visual language,” he said.

Meagan McKinley, freshman deaf education major, decided to protest outside Satterfield Hall because she wanted everyone to have the opportunity to take ASL courses.

“I’m here today to protest for other people,” she said. “Because this is my major, but I feel it’s important for everybody.”

Contact Kelly Tunney at [email protected].