A nonprofit that advocates for survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre gave details at a Thursday night community meeting about its stance that Black Tulsans should not submit DNA to the city.
Eric Miller, an attorney working with Justice for Greenwood, said during the virtual meeting entitled “DNA Databases: Know Your Rights” that the city’s program to identify descendants of massacre victims through self-submitted DNA is asking for a lot in return for a little.
“The city of Tulsa’s program is the worst possible scenario. The city stopped exhuming remains and are preventing further exhumations. They’ve obtained DNA from only two remains but are now requesting hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Black Tulsans provide DNA for the city’s program,” said Miller.
Calling the program fake and a public relations scam, Miller said there are not enough protections in place to shield the identities of donors. He pointed to the 9/11 Commission as an example of a program with appropriate guardrails.
“The city could have paid for the donations and made a privacy firewall in the manner of the 9/11 victims’ DNA collection, but it’s not done that,” said Miller.
Intermountain Forensics, the company working with Tulsa, has been put in a tight spot, according to Miller.
“We recognize it’s the city of Tulsa that’s put them in a very difficult position, forcing them to take the heat for the city’s own failure to…
