Genetic Discrimination and the Employment Provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act: Emerging Legal,Empirical, and Policy Implications

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is the most comprehensive federal civil rights law addressing employment discrimination against potentially millions of Americans. The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a federally funded research effort that seeks to map and sequence every human gene. This article is meant to contribute to the emerging dialogue on the interplay between the HGP and the employment provisions of the ADA, set forth in Title I of the act. The relevance of the HGP to emerging legal questions, including those arising under Title I and recent EEOC guidelines, is described. Thereafter, empirical issues are discussed, and directions for future investigation of genetic discrimination under the ADA are explored.