Here on campus, at Ithaca College, I've been graced with the presence of many dogs and their owners. Our campus partners up with a great, nonprofit program, called Guiding Eyes for the Blind, that allows prepared students to raise and train service dogs until they are ready to proceed further training. A majority of the dogs you will notice on a day to day basis across IC's campus are service dogs in training with their raisers.
Although something you may or may not notice is the breed of the dogs. This is where the breed bias comes into play. The Guiding Eyes for the Blind program, trains Labradors and German Shepherds, but you would never see a Shepherd on this campus. Maybe at Cornell or other campuses, but they are not allowed here. The Ithaca College Policy Manuel states that,
"*The following dog breeds[sic] are not allowed in the residence halls: German Shepherd, Doberman Pinscher, Rottweiler, Pit Bull, Great Dane, Mastiff, St. Bernard, and Wolfhounds, due to their size and/or nature. Dogs above 85 lbs are not allowed.".
Also, according to the college's "Pets on Campus Policy", they do not allow "pets" unless they are service dogs, service dogs in training, on-duty, being used for research, or they are owned by a live-in staff member on campus. The big difference and talking point in this situation are this: if there is a student on campus who brings a dog that is within any of the breeds for themselves that is either in training for trained as a service dog, they are allowed to have that dog on campus. But if you want to train a German Shepherd for Guiding Eyes for Blind, you will be denied.
If one live-in staff member on campus wants to bring their Pit Bull to live with them and another wants to bring their Golden Retriever, only the Retriever will be allowed on campus. The bias here is that only some students or individuals on IC's campus will be granted the approval to bring these breeds that Ithaca College claims are too big or have a bad nature. This not only wrong, in the essence that only some people can have these dogs, but it also reinforces that false idea that these dogs breeds are aggressive and unstable in our environment, which is completely untrue.
Just across the way, at Cornell's campus, you will find many raisers training Labradors and German Shepherds, and you will also find that there is no breed bias when it comes to the dog being in training, trained, or a staff members pet. As an Ithaca Colleg student, I would encourage the campus to take a deeper look and evaluate how they are spreading bias with these inequitable policies.
