The American people are taking the saying “Happiness is a warm puppy,” quite seriously these days. They can also be
seen applying that to warm kangaroo rats, rabbits, pot-bellied pigs, ferrets, and cockatiels. The issue here is that many people have started believing that animals make you happy, irrespective of the place you are at. A number of students have started looking to pets for emotional support and comfort. Students who have been diagnosed with mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and panic attacks, are asserting their right to keep their pets in university residences and campuses.
Though psychiatric care or counselling might be necessary for addressing the mental health problems, pets can help restore the emotional equilibrium of stressed students. Scientific studies prove that animal-assisted intervention might prove to be a therapy for someone suffering from mental trauma. Research also shows that there are many physiological as well as psychological benefits of animal-assisted therapy.
University and college officials receive requests to allow getting assistance animals (as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) and service animals (as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act) on campus as an accommodation. Getting these animals could make institutions more accessible for disabled students and enrich educational institutions by accommodating more number of students.
At the federal level, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) Titles II and III; the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”); and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability. These laws impose many obligations on universities and colleges for accommodating service or assistance animals for students. All higher education institutions are virtually subject to one or more of these laws. These laws are:
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its amendments in the ADAAA apply to the private and public institutions. According to the ADA, any place of public accommodation or public entity must modify its practices, procedures, or policies, to permit the use of a service animal by a disabled individual ADA’s Title II applies to public universities and colleges; whereas Title III applies to private entities, including private schools or places of education.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
Section 504 applies to any institution that receives federal financial assistance. It includes nearly all private and public universities and colleges. Under Section 504, “[n]o qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity which receives Federal financial assistance.”
The Fair Housing Act
Under the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), entities required to accommodate a broader range of assistance animals, including service animals and untrained therapy or emotional support animals (not limited to dogs), in housing covered by the Act.
Under FHA, a person might keep an assistance animal in the dwelling unit as an accommodation if:
- The person has a disability
- The animal is required to afford the disabled person an equal opportunity to use a dwelling
- There is an identifiable relationship between the disability and the assistance that the animal provides.
For more insights on the federal law on accommodations with service and assistance animals for students and employees, attend this Webinar by expert speaker Erin E. Dolly. Erin is an attorney at Hirschfeld Kraemer LLP in San Francisco, where she counsels institutions of higher education and other public and private employers on a broad range of legal matters, including labor, employment, student affairs and compliance issues. You will also get to learn about the legal framework and practical considerations for handling workplace requests for students and employees.
