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In October 1946, Patsy Ruth Fergus, a blind junior at Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles, left school for six weeks to attend training with her new seeing-eye dog. Her dog, Lucky, was gifted to her by her neighbor through the help of a local radio program. When she left, she was warned that she would be unable to bring her guide dog to school with her. The school district was determined to stick to that ruling.
Lucky and the Letter Writers
Patsy Ruth was born in Ohio in 1930 to Mildred and Harry Fergus. By the time she was in high school, her family had moved to a trailer between the Palms and Cheviot Hills neighborhoods, an area now occupied by the Santa Monica Freeway. Patsy Ruth had been partially blind since birth, and fully blind for four years prior to receiving Lucky. She had attended Polytechnic High School’s program for blind students since 1945.
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Polytechnic housed the main high school program for blind students in the Los Angeles City High School District in 1946-47. Students were bussed there specifically for the program. They attended classes with sighted students while also taking part in special training during study halls. Classes for blind students had first begun for elementary students in 1917 and later expanded to high school students.
The program was overseen by Frances Blend, principal of the Los Angeles School for the Blind and Sight-Saving which delivered both the elementary program at Thirty-Second Street School and the high school program at Polytechnic. It was Blend who shaped the district’s policy on blind education and Blend who informed Patsy Ruth’s mother that Patsy Ruth would be unable to return to school with Lucky.
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Instead of trying to reason with the program at Polytechnic, her parents convinced the principal of their neighborhood high school to let Patsy Ruth attend with Lucky without informing him of her history of attendance at Polytechnic. When the district administration learned she was attending Hamilton High School with Lucky, they barred the dog from any LA high school. This decision set off a chain of events that made national news.
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Patsy Ruth’s family worked with Ruth Morrow Slade of the Civil Rights Congress to lodge a complaint with the school board and take the events to the press beginning in January 1947. News about Patsy Ruth reached newspapers, radio shows, and magazines across the country. The board’s original justification, reported in these articles, was that Lucky was a danger to Patsy Ruth and other students.
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When an individual and his whole board makes such asses of themselves that it becomes nationally known, such as you made in the Patsy Ruth Fergus case, it is a negative honor and you should call yourselves the Board of Noitacude - Education spelled backwards.
(opens in a new tab)Frankfurt, Germany - Feb. 9, 1947
Dear Sirs,
We twelve men over here are California's born and bred. Nine of us are combat men. Six are from Los Angeles County. The other six are from Northern California.
We want to say that we have never ever seen such display of heartlessness in all our lives. Enclosed is a clipping from the 'Stars & Stripes' showing the case of Ruth Fergus, the 16 year old blind girl.
Why don't you give her a break? If you want, we'll send money for a muzzle for her dog. We've always been proud of our state and our home town. We've bragged and bragged about the warm-heartedness of a Californian --- were we wrong?
(opens in a new tab)Dear Sirs, I am a Junior in Wyandotte High School in the fair state of Kansas, and when I read the article in the paper about that girl and her dog that you won't let go to school --- I came to the immediate conclusion that you --- Are a Bum!
(opens in a new tab)Dear Sir;
It might interest you to know that I am typing this letter to you in protest to your atrociousness in regard to the case of PATSY RUTH FERGUS. Even though there is a law prohibiting dogs in public schools, I deem it unnecessary of you, as a school principal, to willfully prohibit the progress of one so courageous a girl as PATSY RUTH FERGUS.
Sir, You are most likely an individual with excellent eyesight. You would not realize the determination it takes to continue, even life, much less school. I know, Mr. J. Paul Elliot, because I too, am blind. You will reconsider, won't you.
These letters came from students, teachers, university staff, members of the armed forces, community organizations, homemakers and more. There are joint letters signed by all members of a newsroom, a fraternity, a civics class and a company of the US Marine Corps. Some of the strangest letters arrived from incarcerated people offering their eyes to Patsy Ruth. Given that whole eye transplant isn’t viable yet in 2022, this was wishful thinking.
(opens in a new tab)Feb 8th 1947, San Diego, Mayor Bowron, Los Angeles, CA
Dear Sir, I read about Miss Patsy Ruth Fergus needing an eye, also about Mr. Joslyn['s] offer to sell one of his.
I have two good eyes and would like to give her one of mine. It is hers for the asking and not 3000 dollars.
I would like very much to get a reply.
Justifying Ableism
The precedent for the board’s stance on Lucky seemed to be a 1940 case in which a boy was warned that he couldn’t bring his seeing-eye dog back to Polytechnic until the dog was better controlled. Patsy Ruth and letter writers were quick to point out that Lucky was trained and not dangerous. Some letter writers even offered money for a muzzle if it meant Lucky would be allowed on campus. Recognizing the flimsiness of their protest, the school board dug for further justification.
The school waged a campaign to prove that their denial of Lucky was reasonable and even desired by blind students. They brought in guests to talk at board meetings, including Principal Blend and current and former students. The students insisted they had never had any need for a guide dog and that they knew blind people who returned guide dogs because they disliked them. (As if a guide dog were one-size-fits-all, and as if the school knew better than the disabled student and her family what she needed.) Also offered was the slippery slope argument that allowing Patsy Ruth to have a guide dog would lead to 40 dogs per classroom due to other students bringing dogs and “pets.”
Ultimately, the school board ended the discussion by issuing an official statement on February 13, 1947 that no “artificial aids” were allowed for students in the blind program. Students were taught to be independent, and no canes or seeing-eye dogs would be allowed in the classrooms. (The school did not acknowledge the contradiction of teaching Braille, another aid.) The statement said that students were welcome to purchase a cane or train a seeing-eye dog after graduation, and such aids would be welcome in the area’s junior colleges but never in high schools. The board claimed that this was the leading guidance on educating blind students, citing Army and Navy programs as examples.
(opens in a new tab)STATEMENT OF THE CASE OF PATSY RUTH FERGUS
For many years, the basic objective in the instruction of the blind student in the Los Angeles elementary and high schools has been to develop self-reliance and freedom from all artificial aids. To do this, the students are taught to adjust themselves to their immediate surroundings without the use of canes, dogs, or other artificial means. The use of dogs, therefore, has not been considered desirable in these classes, because such use causes the student to depend primarily on the dog's guidance, rather than to cause the student to develop his own sensory reactions, and that self-reliance so essential to enable the sightless student to adjust to normal living. This type of training in elementary and high school has been found to equip many blind students for a remarkably normal social adjustment. At the conclusion of this training, which continues until graduation from high school, a dog is frequently recommended as a desirable aid. With prior training, the student finds the dog then as an aid supplementary to his own abilities, rather than placing entire dependence upon the guidance of the dog. In our junior college, those blind students who find they need dogs are encouraged to have them.
The United States Army School at Avon, Connecticut, in its training of soldiers blinded in the last War, bases its program on these same fundamental concepts of self-reliance, independence, and self-confidence which have characterized the blind training program of the Los Angeles schools for thirty years.
To achieve these objectives, the blind students of the Los Angeles elementary schools attend Thirty-second Street Elementary School, and blind students of the Los Angeles high schools attend Polytechnic High School and are transported to and from their homes by a school bus. Individual attention of specially trained teachers, instruct the blind on how to find their way in and out of halls and corridors and around obstacles. Students go from class to class unaided, and are assisted in study periods by teachers who acquaint them with the Braille System, and other essential and proved aids to the blind. Polytechnic High School is one of the regular high schools where the majority of the students are not blind, and the blind students circulate in and with them in an entirely normal atmosphere. Except for the special study classes in which the blind students receive instruction for the blind, these blind students attend the regular classes with the seeing students.
Patsy Ruth Fergus was in attendance at the Polytechnic High School for a year before receiving her guide dog, where she made an excellent record. When Patsy Ruth informed the principal she was leaving the school to take training with a dog, she and her parents were advised by both her teacher and the principal that it would be undesirable for her to bring the dog to school, as this would interfere with her development of her own initiative and self-reliance, which was the chief objective of our training program.
Patsy Ruth has been denied none of the opportunities and privileges which are enjoyed by the other sightless students in the Los Angeles City Schools. The only request of hers that has not been granted has been that she be given special consideration and the special privilege of bringing her dog into the classroom and the school corridors. Obviously, this request could not be granted, as the presence of the dog in classes would be inconsistent with the basic purpose of our training program, and would evidence to other blind students a lack of confidence in these objectives.
It is the consensus of our instructors and administrators in charge of our program for the sightless that blind students, including Patsy Ruth, will be better served by taking advantage of this specialized instruction and by postponing the use of a dog until this program has had an opportunity to develop to the maximum their own abilities and self-reliance.
The Board of Education, therefore, sustains the ruling of its staff that, pending further study, dogs shall not be introduced into our elementary and high school training program for the blind.
In view of the questions raised by reason of the current interest in the use of dogs for the blind, it is further recommended that the Superintendent and the staff report to the Board at a later date as to the present national trends of educational procedures for training the blind in relation to the advisability of the use of dogs or other artificial aids in the instruction of the blind.
Mr. Toll moved that the above statement be adopted. Said motion was seconded by Mr. Larrabee, and on roll call was carried unanimously. 6 ayes.
Today, this is recognized as ableist. Denying disabled people the supports they need to function in the world, whether they be canes, walkers, wheelchairs or service dogs, denies them equal rights to life. These very supports, often mistakenly viewed by others as signs of dependence, enable disabled people to live independently and on their own terms. Overemphasis on living without accommodation was and still is a sign of ableism, one that disabled people experience from others and internally.
At the time, though, disability rights and disability community identity were unheard of. Many people who received personal replies from the school board explaining this position agreed that the board was being reasonable in denying students access to the canes and guide dogs that would enable them to interact with the world around them. Independence according to a non-disabled standard was seen as sufficient justification.
(opens in a new tab)145 East Fifth St., Hastings, Nebr., March 9, 1947
Gentlemen: Thank you very much for your letter of information on the case of Patsy Fergus. My criticism was based on the biased account appearing in the newspapers, and I am glad to hear the whole story. I think you are entirely right in your policy of training blind students.
Thank you again for your thorough explanation of this problem.
Patsy Ruth's Education
With the nationwide outpouring of support came offers for Patsy Ruth to attend other high schools with Lucky, from schools spanning the suburbs of Los Angeles to New Jersey. Citing state law and her father’s job with the Los Angeles Bureau of Water and Power, she declined the offers. Instead, she completed her last three semesters of high school with a home teacher.
Off-campus schooling was not uncommon for LA schools at the time, especially for physically disabled, “delicate,” and “medically fragile” students –terms for students with tuberculosis and other health conditions. In fact, the school tried (unconvincingly) to argue that Patsy Ruth was taking classes at home due to tuberculosis and not due to her service dog.
Were these classes comparable to what she got through attending school in person? Undoubtedly not. This was long before the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975(opens in a new tab) required schools to prioritize “mainstreaming” –putting disabled students in classes with their peers whenever possible. Disabled students were lucky to have any classes accessible to them at all.
There are no records from the home education curriculum in 1947 but provisions for “homebound high school pupils” in 1960 included “a minimum of one hour of instruction” by a home teacher per week. One hour per week. Students could earn credit for just two subjects and one physical education class per semester. The physical education class was “corrective rest”: being at home. The 1960 provisions included a new authorization for high school correspondence courses through the University of California (one per semester), so this was certainly not available to Patsy Ruth.
Even students who could attend in person were limited in the classes offered to them. Dennis Cannon, a wheelchair-using senior at Widney High School for the Physically Handicapped, was denied access to classes at the regular high school that adjoined Widney’s campus. He had previously taken up to four classes per semester at the regular high school, but when he finally got authorization from the school’s medical team to attend full-time in 1960, the district ruled that Widney students could only take two classes per semester at the regular high school. He needed classes not offered at Widney to prepare for college, classes that should have been considered basic offerings at any high school: algebra III, physics and journalism. In the end, he got his classes, but he never attended the other high school full-time.
Both Patsy Ruth and Dennis appealed to the school board with the same plea: they would soon be in college where no one would care that they used a service dog or a wheelchair. Why did it matter in high school?
Guide dogs were openly allowed at the junior colleges and four-year universities in the area. UCLA even had a reader program at the time, where sighted students were paid to read course material to blind students. In fact, Powell Library (then called University Library) opened a blind students’ reading room in 1952.
(opens in a new tab)A Sad Situation
To the Editor:
An astounding situation has become evident to me. At the Bureau of Special Services I overheard a blind student having difficulty obtaining readers. Upon later inquiry I found that even though there are approximately 13,000 students and even though readers can get paid more than $1 an hour (time may be given free), blind students still have trouble getting readers for their courses.
A sad situation if I ever saw one. Me? Of course I signed up!
The members of the LA City School Board never budged on their position, even though articles were run and letters poured in through May. Patsy Ruth was unable to return to the high school classroom with Lucky. She eventually attended UCLA, where she graduated with a degree in music in 1954.
Patsy Ruth and Lucky would have been in good company on the UCLA campus. There were enough blind students using service dogs that the Daily Bruin put out a notice in October 1951 asking students not to pet them.
(opens in a new tab)Petting Disturbs Seeing-Eye Dogs
Refrain from petting or showing affection for the dogs of blind students.
This is the advice of the Office of Special Services, which points out that such actions upset the relationship between dog and master and if carried on extensively destroy the usefulness of the dog.
The office also advises that while many students consider leashing to be an extreme way of impressing a command on the animal, it is the only effective means known.
Despite the school board insisting at the time that their stance was based on the best policies and precedents for blind student education, modern research has shown that these practices are not helpful to students. Blind children learn best when they’re given a cane as early as they can hold it. Guide dogs are usually reserved until students are of an age to care for the dog, but Patsy Ruth, at 16 years old, would be a candidate for many guide dog training programs today.
Disability Rights Going Forward
So what was the outcome for service dogs in high schools? In January 1965, long before federal legislation addressed the matter, the California legislature passed emergency amendments allowing guide dogs to be bussed to high schools and junior colleges with their masters.
At a national level, the key acts that changed the landscape for disabled students were the Rehabilitation Act of 1973(opens in a new tab), the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) of 1975(opens in a new tab) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990(opens in a new tab), but these were not easily achieved. The fight for disability rights is built on countless stories like Patsy Ruth’s: stories of denial, exclusion, abuse and protest. To win the rights that we have today, disabled activists in the 1970s, 80s and 90s hosted sit-ins and marches, rallies and demonstrations.
In 1977, activists held sit-ins in federal buildings across the country to protest the non-enforcement of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973(opens in a new tab), the first legislation that recognized disabled people as a protected class. Section 504 barred agencies that received federal funding from discriminating on basis of disability, including schools. When deadlines for enforcing Section 504 came and went, the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities(opens in a new tab) organized sit-ins in 10 cities and eventually in Washington, DC. As a result, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano finally signed the regulations promised by Section 504, which had been waiting for his signature for weeks while he tried to remove provisions and create “separate but equal” schools for disabled students.
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On March 12, 1990, in the most visible demonstration of the barriers imposed by an ableist world, over 60 physically disabled activists left behind their mobility aids and crawled their way up the steps of the US Capitol building in what became known as the Capitol Crawl(opens in a new tab). The youngest protestor was 8-year-old Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins. A few months later, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)(opens in a new tab) was finally passed.
Finally, with the passage of the ADA, disabled people’s right to use service dogs was protected. It is no longer legal for a place of public accommodation to deny entry to a service dog. Additionally, disabled students are guaranteed a free and appropriate public education by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973(opens in a new tab) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, originally the EHA)(opens in a new tab). If a student can’t get the education they need at their local public school, they can attend a different school at no cost to them, something that was denied to Patsy Ruth.
Unfortunately, while these laws provide legal support for disabled students, some students today still face the same problems as Patsy Ruth in 1947. Cases of schools denying service dogs continue to reach the courts, including the Supreme Court as recently as 2017 (Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools(opens in a new tab)). Patsy Ruth’s case also wasn’t the last time the LA school board faced national outrage over its treatment of disabled students. In 1993, the parents of Chanda Smith sued the district alleging violations of IDEA, leading to large-scale changes to the district’s special education services so that more students wouldn’t slip through the cracks (Chanda Smith v. LAUSD(opens in a new tab)).
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These violations of the rights of disabled people do not go unchallenged thanks to Patsy Ruth Fergus, Dennis Cannon, Chanda Smith, E.F. Fry, Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, and countless others. There’s still work to be done, but the legal precedents won by students and their families allow millions of disabled students to receive a public education in the United States each year.
About the Author
Bri McKenna (she/they) is a Ph.D. student
in the UCLA Sociology Department focusing on disability in
legislation and education. Their master’s thesis analyzed how U.S. senators
use references to disabled people in Congressional hearings, and their
dissertation will look at disability, race and gender in U.S. Supreme
Court oral arguments. In the summer of 2022, she was a research scholar in
the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT) at UCLA Library Special Collections, where she
delved into the history of education for disabled people in the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education collection(opens in a new tab).