This project uses legal theories of racial equality to analyze the relationship between the emergence of race-based biotechnology and political contests over race consciousness in social policy. There is an intense debate among genetic and social scientists about the appropriate use of race as a category in scientific research. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of scientific interest in race-based genomic variation that has yielded biotechnology research and products that may reinscribe the biological nature of race. BiDil, a pharmaceutical approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2005 to treat heart failure in African Americans, commercial genetic technologies for determining racial identity and genealogy, and university genebanks that store genetic materials from people of African descent are three prominent examples of this scientific development. The evolution of race-based biotechnologies is occurring in the sociopolitical context of an equally heated contest over approaches to racial equality. Colorblindness and race consciousness compete as major frameworks for defining the proper treatment of race in social policy. The issues raised by race-based biotechnology, however, do not fit neatly into the ideological fault lines that mark social policy debates over race consciousness. This project situates the emergence of race-based biotechnologies within the political struggle over colorblindness and race consciousness, linking debates about the validity and proper use of race as a category in science, law, and social policy. It will use empirical and conceptual methods, as well as legal analysis, to answer four main questions: How do race-based biotechnologies both reflect and shape current political contests over colorblind and race-conscious approaches to racial equality? How can examining the sociopolitical context help to explain the burgeoning of these technologies at a time when genetic and social scientists have shown that racial categories are socially constructed and without biological validity? How are black scientists, advocates, and consumers in particular navigating the competing interests of African Americans both in race conscious inclusion in technological advances and in opposing the dangerous consequences of biological definitions of race? And how can race equality law and legal norms help to construct a framework for evaluating the ethical use of race in biotechnology research and products? The use of racial equality theory to analyze race-based biotechnology will contribute significantly to the scientific and sociological literatures on science and race. By adding law to the sociopolitical context examined, it will further the sociological interrogation of the co-production of racial meanings in the scientific and political orders. It will also help to develop a new ethical framework for evaluating race consciousness in scientific research by looking to legal theorizing about race, equality, and social justice. Finally, its extension of legal analysis about racism and racial equality to biotechnology will enhance legal theorizing on race by complicating existing colorblind and race conscious frameworks. This project will contribute to biotechnology research and to public policy by helping scientists, policy makers, and the broader public better understand the social implications of race-based biotechnologies in the context of political and legal debates about racial equality. The ethical framework it proposes will provide practical guidance to researchers and policy makers charged with determining the proper role of race as a scientific category. A critical aim of this project is to move concepts of racial justice and the perspectives of African Americans to the forefront of ethical evaluations of scientific research. This project will disseminate its finding widely through presentations to professional groups, multidisciplinary academic meetings, and diverse public audiences; publication of articles in legal, social science, and science journals; a book that provides an analysis of the relationship between race-based biotechnologies and concepts of racial equality and a framework for the ethical use of race in biotechnology; and a seminar for law students on the role of law in shaping the use race in biotechnology research.
