What went wrong at Gallaudet - A Tactical Analysis:

In this entry, I'm going to discuss where the Gallaudet protesters made critical mistakes in their current tactics and provide some guesses as to what will happen next.

Let me first preface this with a few disclaimers:
1) I'm not an expert by any stretch of imagination as it pertains to military/police maneuvers. While I have observed law enforcement training classes and discussed tactics at length, that in itself does not qualify me as an expert.
2) It should be clear that while I support the demand of Dr. Fernandes' resignation based on the circumstances at hand, I do not support the tactics of the students to bring about this result.
3) This is based on the internet entries over the past few days. I have no knowledge beyond what you can read on deafread.com

The critical mistake was abandoning a position of strength (HMB) for a more attractive but less defensible target (the entire campus). Let me explain.

Hall Memorial Building (HMB) is a large brick building with a large atrium inside of it. There are 4 entrances and two exit-only doors for the entire building. Entrances can be barricaded (not safely, mind you...god forbid a fire should occur) and minimal human presence is needed to guard the main entrance. Since all manpower is in a small place, communication and control of manpower is easily accomplished.

In effect, control HMB and you effectively control the academic climate of the campus.

Gallaudet University, however, also has 6 entrances surrounded by 1.7 miles of fence. The entrances cannot be barricaded except by use of vehicles and are heavily dependent on manpower (ergo: you need a lot of bodies there otherwise tow trucks and other heavy equipment can remove barricades quickly). In order to effectively guard the gates, protestors needed to move most of the bodies from HMB to these areas. Additionally, by stretching the manpower to the entrances, the end result is lack of communication and control between each group of students.

Relatively few DPS officers were required (this is the sense I get from the blogs) to effectively retake HMB and cut off the protesters from their supplies (tents, etc.) This is especially critical as I write this because a cold front has moved into the region bringing temperatures from the 70's this afternoon to low 40's overnight bringing entries like this, and this.

I have to think the timing of the police department's actions were intentional. Knowing that cold weather was moving in and cutting the protesters off from their warmth and food supplies, the hope is very cold and very hungry protestors would be more likely to walk away from the gates allowing them to reopen the campus. It remains to be seen if this occurred.

Tonight, temperatures will drop to the 30's. It would not surprise me to see the administration making their move to retake the campus leading up to the coldest hours of night. One might argue the administration will have its justification for forcibly ending the protest with freezing weather approaching since they can cite "safety" reasons as their rationale.

Of course, the protesters can easily say by shutting down the entire campus, they have spread awareness of the issues facing Gallaudet to a broader audience. I won't debate that but as noted above, the protesters have traded long term strength for short-term exposure.