Disability Rights

Today was a big day for non-canine service animal news, which I keep tabs on here as part of ongoing follow up to my New York Times Magazine article, Creature Comforts, about the use of non-canine service animals (which include ducks, monkeys, horses, goats, and at least one kangaroo).  The biggest news is that a court in Missouri has rejected the discrimination case filed by Debby Rose, who I featured in my story. She was forbidden to bring her Macaque monkey Richard into local businesses, despite the fact that she says he's a service monkey trained to help with her agoraphobia (Richard…

Today, in their segment called "Seeing Eye Horse Shocks Store Patrons," Good Morning America featured a woman riding her full sized "Seeing Eye horse" through the grocery store (pictured left). In doing so, it made one of the most common media mistakes: focusing on the quirk factor (woman riding horse in store!) at the expense of the issues involved.  The result is a classic oversimplification of a complex story that's pretty misleading about the use of horses as service animals:  Most non-canine service animal users are not, in fact, people who ride horses through stores.  As far as I…

Okay, so Culture Dish is now back from it's short down time for mourning (and finishing my massive pre-tenure dossier, which was due yesterday and looked something like this).  Lots of posting to catch up on.   First, this:  After reading my recent NYTimes Magazine story on the use of non-canine service animals and the surrounding political turmoil (plus all the follow up here), two producers contacted me about doing a documentary on the subject. I'm not formally involved in the project, but I've talked to them at length, and their idea seems like a good one.  They're hoping to get in…

The Department of Justice has withdrawn its proposed ADA regulations that would have banned the use of assistance monkeys, birds, miniature horses, etc.   This was in response to a memo from Obama's Chief of Staff directing all agencies to hold off on any new regulations until they could be reviewed and approved by Obama's administration.  So for now, the ADA definition of service animal remains as it has been since it's original creation, which means it still includes all species of animals.  One commenter here pointed out that for those concerned about this issue, now would be a good…

A few hours ago, Joe Biden swore in the new head of the Department of Justice -- the first African American Attorney General in history.  This is the man who will be deciding, among other things, the future of guide miniature horses and assistance parrots. Culture Dish will be watching to see what he does with the proposed revisions to the ADA. In other news, the new semester just started and like a moron, I didn't write a few posts ahead of time to put up during the first week of classes.  Still figuring out that whole scheduling-posts thing out.  Getting on it though.

As part of my ongoing follow up to my recent New York Times Magazine story about the use of non-canine service animals and the DOJ's efforts to ban them:  I've been saying for a few weeks that the currently proposed species ban might not become law if it wasn't approved before Bush left office.  And, well, it turns out that the sweeping DOJ changes to the Americans With Disabilities Act were the only regulations under review by the OMB that weren't approved before Obama was inaugurated as president today ... What this means for the Americans With Disabilities Act and the proposed species ban…

A quick post as part of my ongoing follow up to my recent New York Times Magazine story about the use of non-canine service animals and the DOJ's efforts to ban them:  There's an interesting discussion going on about how limiting service animal species also limits religious freedom ... In the interesting comments thread of this blog post, a woman named Mona Ramouni explains that she is currently in the process of having a miniature horse trained as her guide because her religious faith makes it so she can't use a guide dog.  Here's an excerpt of her comments: "I am a Muslim, and we believe…

In a display of stunningly bad timing given all the comments people have been posting here in recent days, the entire ScienceBlogs network will be down from 1pm today until sometime Saturday (or whenever they're done) for a system upgrade. I won't be able to post, and readers won't be able to comment, until the system is back online (alas). If there's some pressing breaking news while this network is down, I'll post it on my old blog here. But I doubt that will happen. Please check back in a day or so to post your comments or, if you simply can't wait, you can email them to me via the…

As part of ongoing follow up on my story in this week's New York Times Magazine, I've been posting about a Department of Justice document leaked to me with the wording of their proposal to ban all non-canine service animals. Yesterday I posted the DOJ's rationale behind the species ban. I've since gotten several emails asking whether the leaked DOJ documents contained language banning the use of psychiatric service animals as well. It doesn't. Here, below the jump, is the DOJ's new proposed service animal definition: "The Department's final rule defines "service animal" as "any dog that…

Yesterday, as part of ongoing follow up on my story in this week's New York Times Magazine, I posted about a Department of Justice document leaked to me with the wording of their proposal to ban all non-canine service animals. Below the jump, for those interested, I've pasted an excerpt from that proposal, which is not yet public. It outlines the arguments the DOJ heard for and against the species ban during this summer's public hearings, plus the DOJ's responses, and its final ruling on the issue. Bottom line: "The Department agrees with commenters' views that limiting the number and…

NEWSFLASH: In this weekend's New York Times Magazine, I reported that the Department of Justice had proposed a ban on guide miniature horses, service monkeys, and other non-canine assistance animals (brief overview of the story and legal issues here, several follow up posts here). In my story, I mentioned that no one knew whether the DOJ had removed the species ban from their proposal after the public hearings this summer. I just got a leaked version of the latest DOJ regulations, and the agency has in fact made the species ban more restrictive. The DOJ's initial proposal would have…

Debby has a restriction on her license that says she can't operate a car without her assistance monkey presentIn the coming days, I'll continue posting follow ups to my story, Creature Comforts, which is running in tomorrow's New York Times Magazine. Since yesterday's follow up post, and my interview on NPR's Day-to-Day, I've gotten many emails from readers with questions. I answered some of them in the comments thread of yesterday's post (which you should check out if you haven't seen it -- fun photos! video footage of Panda the guide horse!). Below I've tackled a few common questions,…

Update: Culture Dish's feed is now live! (Thanks Sb folks!) To subscribe to this blog, just click this link for RSS feed or subscribe to get Culture Dish via email by clicking here. Also: I'll be on NPR's Day-to-Day today talking about Creature Comforts. The show airs at 1pm eastern time. You can listen to it live online here, or anytime after 3pm ET on NPR's site. Stay tuned for more updates.

Skloot interviewing Richard the Assistance MonkeyThe New York Times just posted my latest feature, "Creature Comforts." I've posted photos, videos and links below, but first, the gist of the story: When people think of service animals, they think guide dogs for the blind. But today it's monkeys for quadriplegia and agoraphobia, guide miniature horses, a goat for muscular dystrophy, parrots for psychosis and any number of animals for anxiety, including cats, ferrets, pigs, at least one iguana and a duck. They've been showing up in stores and in restaurants, which is perfectly legal because…