Legal Conceptions of Equality in the Genomic Age

Abstract:     
Theodiosius Dobzhansky was one of the leading population geneticists of the twentieth century. Born in 1900 in a small town in the Ukraine, he came to the United States in 1927 on a fellowship to study with Thomas Hunt Morgan at Columbia University - another giant in genetics who is best known for his work with Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies). Dobzhansky remained in the United States the rest of his life, researching, teaching, and writing about genetics. Dobzhansky's greatest, enduring contribution to genetics is his work (along with such luminaries as R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, Julian Huxley, Ernst Mayr, and Sewall Wright) in formulating the Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary Theory. The Modern Synthesis integrated Darwinian principles of natural selection with Mendelian principles of inheritance to establish the evolutionary foundations of modern genetics.

Keywords: genetics, genomics, equality, civil rights, employment discrimination, OSHA, discrimination

JEL Classifications: K31, K32

Accepted Paper Series