Posted on 10/15/2005 6:36:23 AM PDT by texianyankee
Student files ADA complaint to keep pet in dorm room
SAN ANTONIO - A student has filed an Americans With Disabilities Act complaint against a university because it won't let her keep her pet ferret at her dormitory.
Freshman Sarah Sevick, 19, said in a complaint filed with the U.S. Justice Department that she needs the ferret, named Lilly, at Our Lady of the Lake University to calm her during panic attacks.
"I'm not suing the school, and I'm not asking for money. I'm just trying to get her here," she said.
Sevick said she has been diagnosed with psychiatric problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder. She takes medication for depression and anxiety, she said.
She said her problems are related, legally, to a physical disability.
"It's something inside my body that I can't control," Sevick said.
She is attending the university on a $2,000-per-semester English scholarship and majoring in public relations/marketing.
Sevick asked to keep the ferret at her dormitory and in class before she moved onto campus in August but was denied.
Susan Schleicher, spokeswoman at Our Lady of the Lake, said the university, to protect student privacy, couldn't comment.
Sevick said she's had many attacks since she's been on campus without the ferret.
She discovered Lilly's calming affects when she received the ferret as a gift a year ago.
"Pretty quickly, we realized it was very responsive to her," said Sevick's mother, Kay, who now cares for Lilly. "When [Sarah's] anxiety goes up, [Lilly] climbs on her and nuzzles her and will stay for hours with her until she's better."
Sarah Sevick said university officials feared the ferret was a threat to other students and wasn't trained as a service animal.
Rick White, a local ferret rescuer, supports Sevick.
"The school is using old, outdated information," he said. "In order to make ferrets bite, you have to really provoke them."
Federal officials have denied service-animal status for animals not trained for specific tasks.
Transportation providers make a distinction for animals: Service animals have access rights under the ADA; emotional-support animals do not.
Some transit systems allow therapy animals on buses and trains if they have proper identification from a training facility, according to a 1997 report prepared for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Meanwhile Sevick said she's not doing well in class.
"It's almost like I'm being jinxed," she said.
"Because of that, I stay in my room."
Maybe some ferret fan will let her move into their house.
Somebody buy her a blankie.
William Burroughs of Beat Generation fame kept a ferret in his dorm room at Harvard ...but that was a long time go ...
Tell her to go out and buy a stuffed ferret for cripes sakes. It's just like a binky or that blanket you have to sneak into the washing machine.
Sounds to me like the folks at A&M are just lookin' for scuttle-butt on any other campus. What's Sevick gonna do if she gets to have the ferret? She'll be plum out of excuses for not doing her studies!
And have you ever been around a ferret? "Calming" is NOT a word I would use in that description! Anything but!
If this idgit has the money for this frivolous lawsuit, why is she on a scholarship?
LOL! That brings back memories. My little sister, the baby of eight kids, had an inseparable yellow "blanky" well out of toddlerhood.
The thing would get pretty rank between the times we could snatch it and wash it.
She'd wait in front of the dryer if she caught us.
Naked strippers calm me down. Can I have one in my room?
Why does everything have to be solved with a lawsuit? If you don't like the rules in the dorms, don't live in the dorms. This isn't about doing what's right or standing up for principles, this is about getting her way at any cost on an issue that pisses her off. Welcome to the real world where, a lot of the time, things don't go your frickin' way. You're not living with mommy and daddy anymore.
You raised some excellent questions. I wonder if the fact she has a scholarship means she has to live in a dorm?
I dunno. It's been way too long since I've been involved in the college scene.
"It's almost like I'm being jinxed," she said.
"Because of that, I stay in my room."
That stupid excuse will go real far when you go out and get a job, too. Assuming she graduates and gets a job in public relations, is she going to sue her PR firm to keep her ferret at her desk at work? Time to get lose the security blanket/sippy-cup/pacifier.
I wondered that as well!
How on earth is she gonna make it in society if she has to have a ferret with her at work? Maybe she needs to think about a career at the zoo.
What does A&M have to do with this story? I've tried, but I can't figure out the connection.
My dear friend had a ferret several years ago. The ferret, named "Emily", had her own little doll house in a huge cage. Her little bed had a ruffled comforter, etc. My friend would let Emily out to run the house. The little bugger would steal keys and other small items and hide them. It gave me the creeps. It finally got cancer and all its hair fell out with the treatments the Vet gave her. She only lived a short time after that.
Sarah Sevick's parents should get her an apt that allows pets.
Well, I hope she wins,
because then I'll sue Anna!
She must live with me,
because I get . . . stressed
and only Anna can help
release my, umm, stress . . .
In any case, it's time to step up and be a big girl now.
Sadly, this individual may very well get her way. There are people who spend their life using this kind of crap to get their way. They BS their way through college. They get hired and BS their way through a career as a life-long, full-time victim.
I've seen it at my work. You get people who get hired on because HR decides they need to hire somebody with a "disability". Then the person gets rewarded by being put into a do-nothing job, where they're left alone and carry no responsibility, because they're incompetent, nobody can deal with them, and they get too much time off to know what's going on at work. They stay on the job because there's too big of a risk of a lawsuit if they get canned.
I'm not bagging on people with legitimate disabilities, I'm talking about pampered ritalin-babies who manage to get a doctor's letter and use it to work the system their whole life. The girl in this article thinks she's going to die if she can't have her ferret in her on-campus dorm room. That's not a disability, that's being a whiner.
You're at it again!
Well, celebrities
now get contracts where their dogs
stay with them always . . .
A veterinary office maybe, but she will have to put Mr. Ferret in his cage to deal with the cats and dogs.
Maybe she just needs to up her meds.
But, of course! Paris and Britney get to do it, so I should too!
Ferrets can deal with cats and dogs quite well.
I usually have a different reaction.
:^)-->
I made the mistake of letting my kids talk me into getting ferrets. The smelly little things basically have the run of the house. One of them, now deceased, loved to dig out the insoles of my running shoes and hide them. She also hid socks, keys, you name it. Another one loves to leave little ferret presents in the carpet. We go days without even seeing her. If anyone is thinking about getting a ferret take my advice- just say no.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the courts, the EEOC, and the agency define a disabled person as “any person who (i) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person's major life activities, (ii) has a record of such an impairment, or (iii) is regarded as having such an impairment.
However, in Sutton v United Airlines, Inc., the Supreme Court held that “the determination of whether an individual is disabled should be made with reference to measures that mitigate the individual’s impairment…” That is, the Court found that “it is apparent that if a person is taking measures to correct for, or mitigate, a physical or mental impairment, the effects of those measures–both positive and negative–must be taken into account when judging whether that person is “substantially limited” in a major life activity and thus “disabled” under the ADA.”
This young lady herself says the ferret mitigates her impairment and allows her to function adequately and so, under Sutton, IMHO, she would not meet the definition of being substantially limited in one or more of her major life activities.
A nice attic room, at the rear of the large Victorian house, with a stout lock on the outside of the door...our ancestors knew how to keep family problems private.
If we could check her IQ, we'd find she has the intelligence quotient of a ferret.
Let me guess. She is not seeing a psychologist. She is simply taking her drugs. In other words, being lazy. And by lazy, I mean she has probably been on drugs for a while, and I doubt the anxiety has gone away- it is merely supppressed. If she went to a psychologist, it would be incredibly easy o condition any other object (a stuffed ferret, if she liked) to take the place of the ferret.
Some people managing a big apartment complex told me that they had to do extensive renovations on an apartment including replacing the subfloor after a resident had been keeping ferrets. The smell permeated everything.
But if she is then de-ferreted, the situation changes.
Somebody buy her a blankie.""
How about a teddy bear????
What kind of crackpots are we raising?
What employer is going to let her bring her ferret to work? GIVE ME A BREAK......
"Freshman Fights For Ferret On Campus - Files ADA Complaint Against University
The Bryan-College Station Eagle | October 15, 2005"
A&M is in College Station, as is the rag that printed the article.
Well, it was in the Houston Chronicle, too. So, what does that indicate?
This is my picture. I have a Liberal Arts degree. You want fries with that? ;o)
Sometimes we liberal arts majors take things a little too seriously. [I hope they don't allow her to have the ferret. Other people shouldn't have to live with it because she wants to.]
I don't think pets belong in a dorm. That's why many students live off campus. With my luck, I'd be the one whose kitty puked in the shoes of the floor monitor the day before finals...
Sea Monkeys rarely
will make a mess in your shoe . . .
Of course, they don't purr . . .
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