Genetic Screening: An Employer's Tool to Differentiate or to Discriminate
![handle is hein.journals/jchlp19 and id is 201 raw text is: GENETIC SCREENING: AN EMPLOYER'S
TOOL TO DIFFERENTIATE OR TO
DISCRIMINATE?
Lorie M. Pesonen*
INTRODUCTION
This is about who gets to decide if the job is too unsafe.
-Samuel Bagenstos'
According to Mr. Samuel Bagenstos, the job applicant or employee
should be the one to determine whether a job is unsafe.2 It is also the
opinion of many others, including the Ninth Circuit.3 In Echazabal v.
Chevron, the Ninth Circuit held that an employer may not refuse to hire
an applicant where the position would pose a direct threat to the
* J.D. Candidate Dec. 2002, the Catholic University of America, Columbus School
of Law; B.A. 1982, University of California at Berkeley. The author thanks her
family and friends for their never-ending support. Special thanks is given to Dr.
Arnauld E. Nicogossian, NASA's Senior Advisor for Health Affairs, who lent his
enthusiasm and ideas to this article, and to Jonathon E. Halperin and Thanos
Basdekis of Regan, Halperin & Long, P.L.L.C, for their guidance and
encouragement. Author is with the International and Commercial Law Division,
Office of the General Counsel, at NASA Headquarters, and a lieutenant colonel in
the USMC Reserves, currently assigned to Marine Corps Systems Command.
1. Court Considers Implications of Disabilities Act, CNN.coM. (Feb. 27,
2002), at http://www.cnn.com/2002/law/02/27/scotus.disability/index.html.
[hereinafter Court Considers Implications of Disabilities Act] (Mr. Bagenstos
represented Mario Echazabal, the respondent, in Echazabal v. Chevron U.S.A.
Inc., 226 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2000), reversed and remanded by 122 S. Ct. 2045
(2002)).
2- Court Considers Implications of Disabilities Act, supra note 1.
3. Brief of Amicus Curiae National Council on Disability at 14, Chevron
U.S.A., Inc. v. Echazabal, 122 S. Ct. 2045 (2002) (no. 00-1406) (The 'threat to
self' defense fosters the view that people with disabilities need to be protected
from themselves and from their choices. This case is about who is best able to
make those personal decisions .... ).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jchlp19&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Genetic Screening: An Employer's Tool to Differentiate or to Discriminate
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