Still No Published Policy for Emotional Support Animals at Kent State

by Justin McKinney and Jacob Runnels

[This story has been updated due to a response from Amy Quillin, director of  Student Accessibility Services] 

 

 

Kent State University’s Student Accessibility Services (SAS) still hasn’t published a policy for registering an emotional support animal (ESA) in its online student handbook or list of policies.

 

According to a consent decree from the U.S. Department of Justice, Kent State settled a $145,000 lawsuit regarding a violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), where Kent State denied student Jacqueline Luke the ability to have an ESA live with her in her university-owned apartment and is labeled as “discriminatory conduct.” The lawsuit was originally filed in 2014 but Kent State agreed on a settlement in January 4, 2016, which the decree states “KSU has agreed to change its policy to accommodate similar requests going forward.”

 

The decree states SAS had 30 days after the decree’s entry to “implement the Policy on Reasonable Accommodations and Assistance Animals in University Housing” and it must “post the policy, or a link to it, on the official websites for Student Accessibility Services.”

 

SAS was asked to comment but only commented on its upcoming policy and gave general information about service animals. Through an email exchange, the topic of ESAs was introduced but director Amy Quillin only talked about service animals. In another email exchange, Quillin said SAS is “awaiting the court’s final approval of the Consent Decree before we formally adopt the policy.”

 

She said SAS “reviews documentation of the student’s disability and determines appropriate accommodations on a case-by-case basis using an interactive process,” but this process wasn’t elaborated on nor is there a published policy in SAS’s online handbook concerning this “interactive process.”

 

However, there is an existing policy concerning service animals, but the handbook states a service animal being a dog “trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability,” with some of the disabilities including “intellectual, or other mental.” SAS defines a “mental impairment” as any “emotional or mental illness,” but never considers ESAs on its website.

 

Unlike what the definitions of a service animal and an ESA are, SAS is using the term “service animal” to define ESAs. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) don’t define ESAs, as well as “comfort animals and therapy dogs,” as being service animals.

 

Other Ohio universities, such as Miami University, University of Akron and Ohio University have defined what an ESA is compared to a service dog. The schools use terms such as assistance animals and ESA, but those schools define what privileges are given to an ESA owner.

 

So how does SAS interpret ESA rights if Quillin said SAS hasn’t adopted the policy yet?

 

Freshman advertising major Alissa Woodward was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder nearly two years ago. She feels uncomfortable when she describes whatever triggers her anxiety, so an animal—namely her cat Gunner—would help mitigate her anxiety.

 

“My first meeting with SAS was rescheduled twice and then my second meeting with the director was rescheduled twice… [and] I wasn’t even notified,” she said. “If someone was depressed and had suicidal intentions, I feel like blowing them off like that is something they should not be able to do with their job.”

 

Woodward said she contacted SAS and applied to have an emotional support cat, as she said it would be smaller for her dorm compared to a dog. She said a representative from SAS “went over the policy” with her by talking about responsibilities she will have as a cat owner.

 

She said she had to register herself by providing documentation of her disorder and a doctor’s note, as well as organize a meeting with a director to make sure her “disorder was legitimate.” She said she had “a lot of meetings with the school,” which had to be rescheduled repeatedly.

 

“They seemed pretty hands-off about it,” she said. “[SAS said] they have the right to revoke the accommodation if the animal caused harm to anybody or was causing disturbances [and] it’s not allowed to leave my room at all.”

She said SAS outlined many restrictions when she signed the paperwork, with SAS telling her it can “make a judgment” if it thinks an animal is too big. However, according to the HUD, the school wouldn’t be able to discriminate the animal based on “breed, size and weight limitations.”    

 

Woodward said she was told some restrictions are still “up in the air” right now and are determined by a “case to case basis,” with varying levels of restrictions based on the ESA’s species. However, the FHA doesn’t allow discrimination of animal breed and “not on mere speculation or fear about the types of harm or damage an animal may cause.”

 

Woodward said SAS “didn’t go through [the specifics] much” when it came to the difference between service animals and ESAs, which inspired her to research the two terms.

 

“Awareness is a big issue with [the ESA policy] right now,” she said. “Not many students know they have this accommodation available to them because campus hasn’t made it well known yet.”

 

She thinks SAS wasn’t enthusiastic during her meetings and she felt SAS was just “dealing” with her.

 

”The director of SAS actually threatened to have my cat taken away if it caused disturbances, such as meowing at 3 a.m.,” she said, as she described how the director said it was a disturbance to the people. “[It’s something] I really don’t agree with because there’s no way to prevent a cat from doing that. What do you want me to do? Put a muzzle on it?”

 

There are groups at Kent State that pushes animal acceptance on campus, such as the club 4 the Love of Paws. Melanie Hudock, club president and a senior majoring in human development, said 4 the Love of Paws has the goal of getting “Kent State to be a little more animal friendly.”

 

“Unfortunately, because of policies, there are a lot of things we can’t do on campus and that’s been a constant struggle for our group,” she said. “I definitely would think it’d be more awesome if Kent were to be more animal-friendly.”

 

Hudock feels ESAs are very important to the mental health of a person who needs an ESA. She thinks Kent State is now starting to realize the importance of ESAs and the school has taken “the hard way” with the Luke lawsuit to realize this.

 

“People are becoming more aware of how important [ESAs] are and I think Kent State just needed that push,” she said. “Unfortunately, it was a big push but I think that got them to rethink this.”

 

You can read more about ESA policies here.