You may have noticed recently that there are a lot more animals (usually, but not always, dogs) in places where they didn’t used to be. Like on the floor in front of the airplane seat next to you, sans carrier, eagerly awaiting takeoff.
Before we get into the details of that story, a few definitions are in order. Emotional support animals are a relatively new phenomenon that has been growing in popularity over the past decade. They’re not the same thing as service animals, like seeing-eye dogs, which have been around on campuses and everywhere else for a much longer time. Service animals are trained to perform specific tasks. They fetch, guide, or pull, and can even sense when a dangerous medical episode is under way or about to happen and summon help. Their utility and necessity are obvious.
Getting permission to bring an emotional support animal to campus housing, however, is likely to require an explanation from a health-care professional who’s actually been treating the student (that’s a requirement, for example, at Roosevelt University, which like other Chicago-area colleges and universities allows emotional support animals). In the Columbia College incident, the student, sophomore Lindsey Barrett, says she had documentation from the therapist she sees regularly.
Columbia spokesperson Anjali Julka, citing student privacy regulations, responded to questions with this e-mail statement: “Columbia College Chicago’s student housing policies and procedures are consistent with federal and state law, including without limitation, the FHA pertaining to assistance animals, and the ADA, which governs service animals. The college carefully reviews each situation on a case by case basis.”
