Milan Congress

The Milan Congress was an international conference on the education of Deaf children held in Milan in 1880, where hearing educators voted to ban sign language from Deaf schools and impose oralism, the exclusive use of speech and lip-reading, as the standard pedagogy. The decision excluded almost all Deaf educators from participating in the vote and led to the firing of Deaf teachers across Europe and beyond. Its consequences shaped Deaf education for nearly a century: sign languages were stigmatized, transmission of sign languages between generations was disrupted, and regional sign-language variation in many countries hardened as schools operated in linguistic isolation. The Milan Congress is a foundational reference point for contemporary Deaf studies, Deaf cultural identity, and debates over the social model of disability, and it remains a live concern for Deaf communities scrutinizing AI and sign-language technologies that risk re-imposing a single standardized form of a sign language.