Via Frozen Tropics, we find this story from Voice of the Hill about a recent change in policy at Gallaudet University, the nation’s premier college for the deaf and hard of hearing in Northeast D.C. According to the story, Gallaudet recently extended its student code of conduct rules to include student behavior off campus after neighborhood residents lodged complaints about rowdy late-night parties hosted by students from the school.

The change in rules has reportedly already had an impact, but the story goes on to detail a popular sentiment among residents that because they are deaf or hard of hearing, drunk and partying Gallaudet students had been routinely let off easy by police officers responding to noise complaints for fear of appearing to be discriminatory.

Kerensky said that when he confronted disorderly students, they would “play dumb,” adding that they displayed an attitude of impunity, as if they had learned most hearing people will back down from an argument with a deaf person for fear of appearing discriminatory. “You’d get their attention while they’re peeing and wave to them, and they’d say, ‘what?’ … It’s insulting.”

Several officers experienced the same thing. “When I opened the door, it was like, ‘I don’t understand you, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Burgess said this week at a police-citizen meeting.

Lt. Barbara Hawkins said that before last spring, officers often just told partygoers to pour out their drinks and go inside the house, partly for fear of appearing discriminatory.

“So that was one of the biggest things we were trying to address,” Hawkins said, referring to the “special treatment” the students received.

Before the change in the student code of conduct, Gallaudet could not punish any students caught violating the school’s rules at off campus locations. Other universities in the city, including Georgetown, Howard and GW already have clauses in their codes of conduct governing off-campus behavior.