Posted on February 3, 2021

Biden Taps Princeton Prof for Science Team. She Has an Idea on How Gov’t Can Use DNA.

Benjamin Zeisloft, Campus Reform, January 27, 2021

Among the members of President Joe Biden’s science team is a professor who wrote a book explaining how genetics could be used to determine reparations eligibility.

Alondra Nelson, who teaches in Princeton University’s sociology department, wrote a book entitled The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome in 2016.

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According to the book’s description, Nelson argues that “genetic genealogy is a new tool for addressing old and enduring issues.” Cutting-edge biotechnology can help with “grappling with the unfinished business of slavery,” which includes fostering reconciliation, establishing ties to “African ancestral homelands,” and to “rethink and sometimes alter citizenship.”

However, the book also argues that DNA can support “legal claims for slavery reparations specifically based on ancestry.”

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The Biden administration appointed Nelson as the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Deputy Director for Science and Society.

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