California Legislators' Effort to Prevent Student DNA Testing Could Come Too Late

State legislators have lined up a bill aimed at preventing the University of California, Berkeley, from executing a controversial program that asks new students to participate in genetic testing as part of a fall semester orientation program. But even if the bill becomes law, it will likely be too late to halt DNA collection because campus officials began mailing saliva sampling kits to about 5,500 incoming freshmen and transfer students this week, whereas the legislation cannot come up for a vote before August 2. U.C. Berkeley's fall semester begins on August 19, with welcome activities from August 23 to 27. Jasper Rine, the Berkeley biologist heading the genetic testing project, has scheduled an on-campus public lecture for September 13 to discuss the aggregated results of students' tests.

The proposed legislation, as it appears currently online, directs the University of California system (including Berkeley) and the California State University system to "refrain from making an unsolicited request to an enrolled or prospective student of that segment for a DNA sample for the purpose of genetic testing," but does not prohibit "a...