Nyle DiMarco makes history as first deaf director nominated for an emmy for ‘Deaf president now’

Brande Victorian at The Hollywood Reporter has a story on the site this week which features interviews with Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim, the two men who are primarily responsible for Deaf President Now. The Apple TV+ documentary, which was released onto the streaming service in mid-May, chronicles the events of the so-called “DPN4”—Tim Rarus, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, Greg Hlibok, and Jerry Covell—who, in March 1988, spearheaded a protest over the selection of yet another hearing woman, Elizabeth Zinser, over a Deaf person to be president of Gallaudet University. The institution, established during the Civil War and based in Washington DC, is the world’s only college which caters (almost) exclusively to the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

(I say “almost” because Gallaudet does admit a small number of hearing students.)

Victorian’s piece is timely, as DiMarco has made history by becoming the first Deaf director to receive an Emmy nomination for Deaf President Now. Moreover, the film itself has been nominated for Outstanding Documentary. As far as talking points go, they’re pretty much exactly what I covered when I interviewed DiMarco and Guggenheim about Deaf President Now back in early May. To wit, both men told Victorian what they said to me: the film’s essence is truly about centering the Deaf experience and point of view. The DPN protest, as it’s colloquially known, is a part of Deaf history that’s well known to the community—but not to the wider, hearing world.

I’ve covered Gallaudet at close range over the last several years, including writing about its football team and, perhaps most apropos in context of DiMarco’s triumph in bringing Deaf President Now to life, profiling its current president Roberta Cordano back in 2022.

I. King Jordan became Gallaudet’s first Deaf president following the DPN protest.