US: After six months of protests that climaxed in hunger strikes, a campus lock-down and mass arrests, students at Washington DC's Gallaudet University this week rolled up their tents and celebrated victory.
The celebration was emotional but silent as the protesters cheered by raising their hands high in the air, palms out and wiggling their fingers - at Gallaudet, all the students are deaf.
The demonstrations began in May when the university's trustees chose Jane Fernandes as university president, succeeding I King Jordan after 18 years. Students complained that, in her current position as provost, Fernandes offered poor leadership and failed to address concerns about campus racism and audism - discrimination against deaf people.
Black students were angry that the trustees refused to consider a highly qualified black candidate for president but interviewed less qualified white contenders.
As the protest developed, however, it became a debate about deaf culture, integration and the future of American Sign Language (ASL) as the primary means of communication for some deaf people.
As America's only liberal arts university for the deaf, Gallaudet occupies a central position in the country's deaf community but it has seen student numbers fall in recent years. Fernandes wanted to reverse this trend by seeking to "reach out to the broader population of deaf and hard-of-hearing students".
Four out of five deaf children in the US attend mainstream, non-deaf schools and one in four young deaf people now uses a "cochlear" implant to improve hearing. Many deaf people rely on lip-reading or forms of signing that effectively transliterate spoken words.
The student protesters at Gallaudet feared that Fernandes, who was born deaf but only started signing when she was in her 20s, wanted to marginalise ASL, which they see as an essential element of deaf culture. They point out that many deaf students were born to deaf parents and that ASL is the only language in which they feel fully sovereign.
Some students cited difficulties at Gallaudet when students came into conflict with teachers or security staff who were unable to sign. One protest leader, LaToya Plummer, explained her position in a video, using ASL.
"You would think that the obstacles of being a black, deaf person would make my life full of frustration and misery. It's really like this: my life is richer. I know it might be hard for people who can hear to understand that," she said.
Fernandes claimed that she was being rejected for being "not deaf enough" and accused the demonstrators of seeking to retreat from the outside world into an exclusive form of identity politics.
The protests turned nasty when the college football team initiated a campus lock-down and police arrested 133 students, using pepper spray and bulldozing protesters' tents. As soon as they were released from custody, the arrested students were back at the protest and the college authorities gave in last Sunday, announcing that Fernandes would not be taking up her post.
This is not the first time that Gallaudet students have taken to the barricades to assert deaf rights - 18 years ago, they successfully demonstrated for the appointment of the university's first deaf president.
The latest demonstrations are part of a long struggle for more autonomy on behalf of deaf people. They argue that, even if the use of sign language declines elsewhere in America, Gallaudet should remain a place where there is no discrimination against those who use it.
The university's board of trustees has promised to start the search for a new president within weeks, but this time will consult more closely.
Most students were relieved this week when the protest ended but a sign draped outside the students' union building made clear that they are confident it was a battle worth fighting.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they arrest you. Then you win," it read.
