Race and Research Ethics

Catalog description

This course will explore the troubling history of the relationship between the American medical research establishment and African Americans and other American minorities. Moving from slavery in the antebellum South to the present day, this course will focus on both the historical and current dynamics between African Americans and scientific research in the United States. In doing so, this class will explore the fraught experiences of minorities as research objects, as research subjects, and as researchers themselves. Topics will not only be addressed in regard to particular cases, but also will be contextualized based on the evolving ethics of the research environment they occurred in. Finally, this class will provide an opportunity to actively engage the current state of affairs by constructing potential solutions and envisioning different future trajectories of this fraught relationship.