Great Moments in Human Rights: Mandated "Emotional Support" Animals in College Dorms

I was a bit of a juvenile delinquent.

• I semi-confessed that I may have set off fireworks in a stairwell at my high school.
• And I’ve already confessed my role in an “attack” on a float during a homecoming parade.
• So I may as well admit that I got in trouble during college for having a pet snake in my dorm room.

Given that last bullet point, you would think I would sympathize with people who want to bring pets to school.

And I do, but I don’t sympathize with the notion that the federal government should compel colleges to allow pets – even if they’re for “emotional support.”

Yet that’s exactly what’s happening, thanks to some bureaucrats at a Department that shouldn’t exist. Here are some blurbs from the Wall Street Journal about a new breakthrough in human rights.

College freshman suffering from separation anxiety, take heart: The federal government says universities have an obligation to admit “emotional support” animals into school housing. …emotional support animals (dogs, mostly) provide therapy through companionship and affection.

The pinheads at the Department of Housing and Urban Development say this is required by the Fair Housing Act.

Housing providers must offer people with disabilities a “reasonable accommodation” for emotional support animals under both the Fair Housing Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1974, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said in a notice to its regional offices late last month. …The April 25 notice was sent about a week after a federal judge ruled that student housing is covered by the Fair Housing Act, in a lawsuit filed by HUD against the University of Nebraska, on behalf of a student there.

Meet Fido, your new dorm neighbor

Best of all, you can bring any animal you want so long as it doesn’t have a track record of bad conduct.

Housing providers can’t exclude animals based on breed, size or weight. They can, however, refuse an animal that poses a direct threat to the health and safety of others or would wreck havoc on the property, but such refusals must be based on “objective evidence about the specific animal’s actual conduct – not on mere speculation or fear,” the notice says.

So that doberman pinscher is innocent until proven guilty!

Another great development in “human rights” around the world. Indeed, it belongs with these momentous breakthroughs.

• In France, it is against the law to say your husband is under-endowed or that your wife is fat.
• Across Europe, a satellite dish is now a human right.
• In Finland, broadband access is a basic right.
• There’s now an entitlement for free soccer broadcasts in Europe.
• In Italy, you have the right to…um…your testicles.
• Both the United Nations and the Obama Administration think there’s a right to taxpayer-financed birth control.

Speaking of subsidized birth control, you can enjoy some laughs at Sandra Fluke with this great Reason video, this funny cartoon, and four more jokes here.