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A Man Says His DNA Test Proves He’s Black, and He’s Suing

SARAH ZHANG SEP 19, 2018

In 2014, Ralph Taylor applied to have his insurance company in Washington State certified as a “disadvantaged business enterprise.” The DBE program at the U.S. Department of Transportation was originally designed to help minority- and woman-owned businesses win government contracts. So as proof of his minority status, Taylor submitted the results of a DNA test, estimating his ancestry to be 90 percent European, 6 percent indigenous American, and 4 percent sub-Saharan African.

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But Kim TallBear, a professor at the University of Alberta, says this is a misunderstanding of how Native American identity works. Unlike racial categories of black or white, tribal-enrollment criteria is actually quite clear. Each tribe gets to determine who belongs, and membership is often based on tracing direct ancestry to other members of the tribe.

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