Deaf President Now!

Co-directed by Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim, this documentary covers eight days at Gallaudet University in 1988. The board of the world's only university for deaf students appointed a hearing president while qualified deaf candidates were available. Students boycotted classes, shut down the campus and demanded the president resign. The form is built around the subject. The narrative moves through the present-day accounts of the four students who led the action, and the film deliberately breaks hearing-centred conventions of storytelling. The archive material comes from news coverage of the time. After eight days the president resigned and I. King Jordan became the university's first deaf president. The film argues that this movement opened the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act a few years later. It screened at Sundance in 2025 and reached Apple TV+ the same year. Who it's for: anyone interested in civil rights history and Deaf culture. Who it's not for: viewers wanting an account that keeps critical distance; the documentary openly stands with the movement.