Catalog 2024-25 > Academic Policies and Procedures > Disability-Services > Service and Emotional Support Animals in Residence > Legal Considerations

Legal Considerations

For Emotional Support Animals (ESAs)

Legal justification for the use of Emotional Support Animals is found in the Fair Housing Act (FHA); it stipulates: 

• Persons with disabilities may request reasonable accommodations for any assistance animal, including an emotional support animal, under both the FHA and Section 504.
• An ESA is not a pet. It is an animal that provides the emotional support needed to alleviate one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person's disability or disabilities.
• Disability services providers are to evaluate a request for reasonable accommodations to possess an ESA in a dwelling using the general principles applicable to all reasonable accommodation requests. After receiving such a request, the disability services provider must consider the following:
  
  
  • Does the person seeking to use and live with the animal have a disability — i.e., a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities?
  • Does the person making the request have a disability-related need for an ESA? In other words, does the animal work provide emotional support that alleviates one or more of the identified symptoms or effects of a person's existing disability?
    
    

For Service Dogs 

Legal justification for the use of a service dog is found in the Americans with Disabilities Act; it stipulates: 

• Service dogs perform many disability-related functions, including but not limited to, guiding individuals who are blind or have low vision, alerting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to sounds, providing protection or rescue assistance, pulling a wheelchair, fetching items, alerting persons to impending seizures, or providing emotional support to persons with disabilities who have a disability-related need for such support. 
• Service dogs are permitted to enter any area of a facility where the public is permitted to go.  
• A person with a disability cannot be asked to remove their service animal from the premises unless: (1) the dog is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it or (2) the dog is not housebroken. When there is a legitimate reason to ask that a service animal be removed, staff must offer the person with the disability the opportunity to obtain goods or services without the animal’s presence.
• When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
• Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility.