University Housing and the Fair Housing Act

Excerpt from Disability Blog: (click for entire article)

I am back with you today to talk about the recent settlement reached in United States of America v. Millikin University, an important case concerning university housing and a student with disabilities. In my previous Disability.Blog posts on May 3, 2010 and January 19, 2011, I discussed in some detail reasonable accommodations under the federal Fair Housing Act (FHAct). While I did not address university housing in those posts, the Millikin case makes clear that the fair housing protections of persons with disabilities do not end at the university gates.

The Millikin Case

The Millikin case involves a student with legal blindness and epilepsy who was accepted to Millikin University, a coed, independent four-year university in Decatur, Ill., for the fall semester of 2004. On her freshman housing application, the student requested a “quiet” dormitory, because noisy environments worsened her epileptic seizures. She also informed the housing supervisor that she planned on obtaining a specially-trained, seizure-alert dog that would live with her on campus, to which no objection was raised.