The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act as an Antidiscrimination Law

This Article provides the first in-depth reading of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) as an antidiscrimination statute. GINA, touted as the first major civil rights legislation of the new century, passed in May 2008. Thus, both to understand GINA's potential impact, as well as to improve its efficacy, the statute must be analyzed as an antidiscrimination law. When read as an antidiscrimination statute, GINA takes a clear position on one of the most contested issues in that area of law: antisubordination versus anticlassification. This debate queries whether antidiscrimination law should seek to elevate the social status of certain subordinated groups or should prevent all consideration of particular forbidden characteristics. GINA as currently drafted plainly favors anticlassification; it protects individuals from any intentional differential treatment by health insurers or employers based on genetic information. In contrast, an antisubordination approach to protecting genetic information would focus not on outlawing all forms of intentional, differential treatment, but on preventing a genetic underclass from forming. In particular, an antisubordination framework would allow employers to consider genetic information for accommodation purposes and victims of discrimination to challenge facially neutral policies that produce discriminatory results. This Article proposes that amending GINA to include more antisubordination protections would better safeguard genetic information. INTRODUCTION I. UNDERSTANDING GENETIC INFORMATION A. Fear of Genetic-Information Discrimination 1. Social Genetic Determinism in the Past 2. Social Genetic Determinism in the Present and Future B. Norms Behind Protecting Genetic Information 1. Humanity 2. Democracy 3. Immutability 4. Privacy II. PROTECTING GENETIC INFORMATION A. GINA as an Antidiscrimination Statute B. What Makes GINA Different III. THEORIZING GENETIC INFORMATION A. Traditional Antidiscrimination Principles B. Antidiscrimination Principles and Genetic Information 1. Antisubordination and Genetic Information 2. Anticlassification and Genetic Information C. Benefits of Antisubordination Theory for Genetic Information 1. Title VII as a Paradigm 2. ADA as a Paradigm 3. Best Case Scenario CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION Genetic-information discrimination captures the imagination. It conjures images of gloomy dystopias in which the content of our genes determines the outcome of our lives. In this troubling vision of the future, our education, careers, incomes, relationships, and myriad other social, economic, and personal goods depend solely on our genetic material. Yet while this world might appear largely hypothetical, the possibility of genetic-information discrimination exists outside Orwellian fantasy. The fear that potential discriminators might use heredity in making decisions about our lives also feels uncomfortably familiar, reminiscent of a time when the State could sterilize a person against her will in the name of the public good. Failing to protect genetic information at once portends a bleak future and recalls an unfortunate past. Congress debated the issues surrounding the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) (1) for close to thirteen years before passing the statute in a near-unanimous vote in May 2008. (2) Ultimately, it drafted GINA as civil rights legislation, intended to outlaw a burgeoning form of discrimination. (3) Specifically, GINA prohibits discrimination on the basis of genetic information in health insurance and employment. Title I prohibits health insurers from using genetic information for determining eligibility or premiums and from requiring genetic testing. (4) Title II proscribes employers from hiring, firing, classifying, or otherwise disadvantaging employees on the basis of genetic information. …