There’s a story in the New York Daily News about a grade school girl who has been denied the right to bring her service dog to school. The Rush-Henrietta school district announced that the dog would be a distraction to students and might disturb people with allergies. Amazingly the district’s attorneys announced that the denial of a service dog was ok.
As a long time guide dog user I know all about this ableist argument. “Your dog might trigger allergies in other people” is my favorite ableist argument. The reason? Because it reveals instantaneously an overt failure to understand that the ADA is a civil-rights act. The allergic in this world don’t get to trump my right to be somewhere.
I’m not shocked that the Rush-Henrietta school district has violated the law. The ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of able bodied people goes on. Disability whether its invisible or visible does not consign a child or adult to marginal citizenship. And service dogs are the law.
Planet of the Blind 