Jessica Roberts is the Leonard H. Childs Chair in Law and Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center.
Jan. 14, 2021 - University of Houston Law Center Professor Jessica Roberts’ article, “GINA, Big Data, and the Future of Employee Privacy,” which was featured in the Yale Law Journal, was recently reviewed on the scholarship website JOTWELL. University of Tennessee College of Law Associate Professor Bradley Areheart co-wrote the article with Roberts.
The focus of the article is how the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) offers a blueprint for preventing employers from breaching employee privacy. It was reviewed by St. Louis University School of Law Professor Matt Bodie.
“Areheart and Roberts have staked a claim for GINA as a model for how employee privacy might be protected in other areas of their lives,” Bodie wrote in his review. “Their article is a terrific contribution to our understanding of the future of employment.”
In the piece, Bodie noted that Roberts and Areheart examined federal courts during the statute’s first decade, unearthing 48 unique GINA cases, 26 of which involved terminations. However, in most cases, gaffes such as voluntarily disclosing genetic information or an inability to prove the employer possessed genetic information cost the plaintiffs their case.
Roberts is the Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute and the Leonard H. Childs Professor of Law.
Bodie’s review marks the third time Roberts’ research and scholarship was featured in JOTWELL, and the 15th instance a member of the Law Center faculty was highlighted.
