Adam Cohen (1)

Here's the engrossing expose of Carrie Buck v. Bell, a landmark case in American legislation for it will legalise the sterilization of whose deemed 'feebleminded'.

Now, obviously, how do you define 'feebleminded' and assess how supposedly threatening such people were to society as a whole (to ultimately go as far as legislating for their long term extinction) are challenging questions. The author, here, does a brilliant job in debunking all the tenets which had led to such fallacious show more thinking -from the twisted use of poor IQ tests to the reductionist (pseudo)science which underpins it. He also brilliantly explains why such policies triumphed in the USA at the time they did. After all, despite 'eugenics' having been first thought in England, only Nazi Germany would match and finally surpass the Americans... But, this is not it.

At its core, what this book is all about is a retelling of how such case came about, the people who defined it, and, the story of what went on in courts. It's a terrible indictment of what was indeed a miscarriage of justice.

Here's the striking thing:

'The litigation over Carrie's sterelization presented a more complicated geometry than the usual situation of two legal adversaries facing off in court.'

That's a mild way to put it! Accused of being an innate feebleminded like her mother and her baby, Carrie Buck might have been through all available procedures to defend herself. In the end, she stood no chance.

She stood no chance because of the rigged dynamic between the debating participants. For example, her lawyer (Irving Whitehead) was a pro-eugenics himself who had been chairman of the colony's board where Carrie had been interned (and whose Superintendent was now pushing for her sterelization)! She stood no chance because, the justice who will decide on behalf of the Supreme Court (Oliver Wendell Holmes) was a cynic man, a social Darwinist who believed the purpose of the law was to serve the powerful. The author, being a graduate from Harvard Law School, does more than demonstrating how Carrie had been misrepresented (if at all). He shows how betrayed she was by the justice system. His words against whose involved here are harsh, but, if we can regret their at times highly emotionally charged tone in a history book, it's difficult to don't be angered indeed:

'Whitehead's representation of Carrie at the trial and on appeal was an extraordinary case of malfeasance. Not only did he violate well-established ethical rules about the duty of loyalty to a client... but his entire representation of Carrie, in a case of enormous importance to her, was a fraud... He was an impostor.'

'the personal philosophy of Holmes was... unsentimental and power centred. It held that whoever won dominance in the social order would naturally use their positions in ruthless pursuits of their own interests -and they were right to do so.'

'Holmes's philosophy left scant room for the disadvantaged and the weak, who hoped the legal system would soften society's blows... it had little to offer to a poor, uneducated young woman from the rural South, who wanted the court to protect her from... the popular social movement that had caught her in its sights.'

Tellingly, he also focuses on the motivation behind the lawyer (Aubrey Strode) who were supposed to have Carrie sterilized on behalf of his client (the Colony where she was interned). Was he an anti-eugenics who tried to sabotage his own case? It's impossible to say, and the author just advances here some conjectures. But, adding to the confusing dynamic, here was the man who had drafted the bill in Virginia (where the case originated) in such a way that, among the consequences of its many safeguards, it ultimately led it to be challenged to the Supreme Court. This was a bizarre case indeed! Him too, though, despite the author being more lenient in portraying him (for example, in reminding his philanthropic campaigns for education and women's rights) is not spared by a harsh yet deserved judgement:

'Strode was just the sort of lawyer who should have understood implicitly that was being done to Carrie was wrong, and he should not have gone along with it. Strode's inherent sense of justice should have been offended. Strode, however, went along with it all.'

And Carrie? Well, her story is poignant; which make this whole case even more harrowing and enraging. She had been chosen as the guinea pig for the sterilization laws to be implemented on the ground of spurious reasons. She was labelled a 'moron' (she wasn't, even by the definition of the term as understood by the partisans of eugenics at the time). She was accused of being one of 'three generations of imbeciles' (Holmes's infamous statement) an accusation which is revolting when you know the third generation in question was her baby (what does it take to label a baby a 'low grade moron' just by its look and behaviour!). Even more appalling, she was also an unwed mother, not because she had been immoral by the standard of the time, but, because she had been raped (a fact which never came to light during the proceedings). Carrie, in short, was everything the ruling class members deciding upon her fate despised, were prejudiced against, and feared.

This book is a chilling tale, and a warning. Sure, at a time of triumphing genetics and the potential offered by genetic engineering we should be very mindful of the potential misuses of biology. But, beyond science, it's how society is shaped by its governing members we should also be mindful of. Carrie's story, and thereafter the story of all whose who have been deemed 'unfit' to reproduce and so legally sterilized, show us above all the terrible dangers that lurk when a ruling class not only feels itself entitled to power, but, look down upon its underprivileged and weakest members as a loathsome threat costing to the taxpayers (sterilizations were so successful because cheaper than locking people up for life...). It's more than history, pseudoscience and a legal case. It's about ethics. show less

Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen (Penguin Press, $28).

The title of Adam Cohen’s Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck comes from a sentence in the famous jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes’ opinion in Buck v. Bell: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

This brutal attitude to what we would now call the reproductive rights of people with mental disabilities was part and show more parcel of the eugenics movement, which was not limited to the ultra-right and the Nazi Party, but was also the purview of progressives, who thought human progress would best be served by eliminating inferior specimens from the breeding stock.

What’s most fascinating here is the way that paternalism and authoritarianism can be just as easily a part of the “liberal” perspective as the conservative; if we really mean what we say about liberty and bodily autonomy, then that applies to everyone, no matter what we think about their genetic makeup or child-rearing skills.

Carrie Buck—who was not mentally disabled, by the way—is at the heart of this narrative history, but Cohen also pays close attention to the flawed science behind eugenics and the arrogance of some of its proponents. Fascinating reading, given how reproductive freedom is still a political football, and how the 8-1 decision upholding Buck’s sterilization, according to Cohen, has never been overturned.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

Cohen’s riveting story of one of the blackest episodes in American social history – the mass sterilization of persons with intellectual disabilities – has a particular resonance for me. I spent my professional career working with these individuals and have personal knowledge of the terrible circumstances of their lives sanctioned by the powers of government, circumstances which slowly improved in the last quarter of the 20th century, but which even today are not entirely overcome. I show more came into the field in the late 1970’s when the heyday of the large institutions was beginning to wane. The horrors and futility of these so-called asylums had been discovered by an outraged public that brought pressure to bear on legislatures across the nation to change state and national policies. I was involved in the closing of two large institutions for persons with intellectual disabilities in New York State, replaced by community-based alternatives. There was widespread attention by social reformers and advocates (often family members) that the neglect and overt harm wrought to persons in institutions could no longer be tolerated. Of most significance, this reform movement was not initiated by mental disabilities professionals; indeed, the medical leaders and policy decision makers often opposed abandoning the institution system and its medical-model modes of care and treatment. As late as 1980 when I assumed a leadership position in a large upstate institution there were futile efforts to satisfy opposition by improving the living conditions and treatment programs. Thank goodness that sanity ultimately prevailed and the presence of institutions that isolate and segregate persons with intellectual disabilities is nearly finished.

Cohen chronicles the astounding history of the eugenics movement that throughout most of the 20th century brought about the compulsory sterilization of tens of thousands of men and women determined by “authorities” to be feeble-minded. Stemming from the Social Darwinism of the late 19th century there developed an obsession with preventing the ruination of the higher classes by the profligate reproduction of offspring of mentally defective persons. The eugenics movement purported to be based on the science of heredity. In fact, the science behind eugenics was specious. Beneath the high-toned rubric of advancing the capability of the nation by weeding out “undesirables” lay strong and deep currents of racism and class superiority. Paralleling the sterilization campaign was a largely successful effort to restrict immigration of “lower” types from southern and eastern Europe, including Jews seeking to escape the rising oppression of totalitarian regimes.

Cohen conveys this horror story through the case of Buck v. Bell, the Virginia case that resulted in a Supreme Court decision written by Oliver Wendell Holmes that sanctioned the use of sterilization for its stated purpose. Carrie Buck was a young women from Charlottesville who came from a lower class family. She was placed in foster care with the Dobbs who used her principally as a house servant. Until the sixth grade Carrie went to school where she did reasonably well in her studies. The Dobbs removed her from school, Cohen speculates, to have her devote more time to housework. In her later teen years Carrie became pregnant, most likely by a nephew to the family. The Dobbs could not abide her presence in their home and quickly petitioned the social services system to have her involuntarily committed to a state institution in Lynchburg for “epileptics and the feebly-minded”. Carrie was classified as a “moron” based on an intelligence test that after was widely debunked as worthless. (The categories of “idiot”, “imbecile” and “moron” were diagnostic nomenclatures of the time based on the perceived degree of intellectual disability.) Cohen points out that there was little about Carrie or her history that objectively supported any degree of mental disability; Carrie’s “slowness” was most likely the product of the environmental circumstances of her family life. To make a case that Carrie’s mental deficiencies were the result of heredity it was claimed that her mother, also an inmate of the institution was a moron (doubtful Cohen contends) as was her infant daughter. This latter claim was especially outrageous as she was only six months old when examined by an entirely unqualified person, making a finding of mental deficiency highly dubious.

The country’s fixation on sterilization of undesirables had been around since 1915 when Indiana passed the first law allowing it. Similar laws were enacted in other states, but many had fallen to court challenges, usually failing to meet the requirements for due process and equal protection. The equal protection fault was particularly interesting since because the laws were limited only to persons confined to institutions, and did not include feeble-minded persons living outside of institutions, its limited reach was deemed an unequal application.

Dr. Albert Priddy, the superintendent of the Lynchburg facility, was determined to find a way to sterilize “defective” persons under his charge. He approached Aubrey Strode, a brilliant young lawyer who had previously served on the institution’s board. Cohen shows some sympathy for Strode claiming that he appeared to be personally unenthusiastic about sterilization, but acted faithfully to his client’s aims. Strode carefully drafted a law that he felt would withstand legal challenge, particularly the equal protection weakness. His put forth the idea that although only inmates could be sterilized institutions would serve as clearing houses where any citizen determined to be defective could be committed and sterilized. (One eugenics advocate projected that as many as 15 million Americans might be appropriate for the procedure.) Strode insisted that the law be tested in the courts, including the US Supreme Court, before it was applied to anyone.

Carrie Buck had arrived at Lynchburg shortly before the law was to be tested. Priddy selected her as the test case. At the hearing in the local court care was taken to provide Carrie with due process protections – notification, counsel and the right to cross-examine. Cohen points out several egregious flaws at the proceeding. The evidence behind the diagnosis did not support the claim of imbecility in her or her family members. Her appointed attorney did nothing to challenge these evidentiary weaknesses and, indeed, seemed in league with the opposition. The finding that it was lawful to sterilize Carrie was upheld in the Virginia Supreme Court and the case advanced to the United States Supreme Court.

The case went to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the most renowned jurist of the era. Cohen devotes much space to analyzing Holmes’s character. He suggests that Holmes’s high-born status – his membership in the Boston Brahmin class – shaped his belief in the superiority of the upper class as a legitimate basis for reaching legal decisions affecting weaker classes. In his private correspondence Holmes revealed sympathy for the aims of the eugenics movement. Holmes had frequently shown in his earlier decisions great deference for the discretion of legislatures even when he disagreed with their aims. He applied this deference again, but his main line of reasoning was that government had the right within the exercise of its general welfare powers to protect society from the burdens of caring for disabled persons. Holmes made much of the earlier decision that upheld Massachusetts’s compulsory vaccination law for the protection of the public’s welfare. He underappreciated the massive difference in impact on persons that sterilization created. Holmes concluded his decision with the memorable phrase, “three generations of imbeciles are enough”.

Sterilizations had been declining in the preceding years, but the court’s decision revived their use in most states. Over decades tens of thousands of men and women were sterilized. Although the procedure was infrequently used after the horrors of the Nazi’s racial purity measures, it was still used as late as the early 1980’s, long after the science of eugenics was repudiated.

While on its face the story of Carrie Buck’s fate is repulsive, there are several important themes that deserve comment. Cohen makes much of the fact that the evidence showed that Buck was not retarded and that this perhaps willful misdiagnosis led to monumental injustice to her. Certainly it was, but one must remember that there were many thousands of institutionalized persons whose degree of profound impairment was unquestionable. That these individuals would be the victims of this heinous social engineering over the years was the most profoundly terrible result of the test case on Carrie. Cohen makes the case strongly that the eugenics movement’s appeal to many was its overt racism; that the superior lines of humanity resided in the Nordic races, other “races” being ipso facto defective. We find this disgusting, but how many social programs seem even today seem still to have undertones of racism? (For example, the mass incarceration of African-Americans in our nation.)

Equally disturbing is that many of eugenics’ adherents believed that it was grounded in science and that the mantle of science legitimized the actions that derived from it. While there were not a few scientists and academics who challenged eugenics as “junk” science the aura of science as legitimizing social policy, legislative actions or judicial decisions should always be worrisome to us. It is similarly worth noting that eugenics was perceived by many to be “progressive”; that by employing practical measures deriving from science the advancement of humanity was practically an obligation of a modern society. (Indeed, the advent of “asylums” in the 19th and 20th centuries was held to be humane and progressive, despite the clear evidence that people were maltreated and overtly harmed.)

Finally, something must be said about the power of the professional class in this era. We saw this in the actions of the social workers and, especially, the medical directors of the institutions who exercised complete control over the lives of others. The deference showed to so-called experts in determining what was in the best interests of “weaker” persons resulted in curtailment of their rights to liberty.

I saw evidence of this power in the early years of the (now-closed) state institution of which I was the director. The institution’s first director (1902-42) started a “colony” program through which “inmates” could be paroled to the community on condition of good behavior or risk of re-commitment. The colonies hired out men and women at peon wages to do domestic or farm work in the communities where they were located. One condition of parole to which young women must submit was sterilization. Here the idea of compulsory sterilization, or without informed consent, takes a perverse dimension as this form of sterilization was purported to be voluntary.

In even more personal terms, the house in a village we bought in 1987 had in the rear lawn small abandoned log cabin adjacent to a large flower garden. Though derelict it had a door and fireplace and could have accommodated someone. I asked around the town about it and one older neighbor said, “Oh sure, that was where the boy from the state school lived in the 1940’s. He did their gardening.” The shame! show less

Utterly horrifying and captivating. Author, Adam Cohen, digs deep to shed light on America's horrifying obsession with eugenics by outlining the supreme court case of Carrie Buck, a young girl who was declared "feeble-minded" and sterilized. At the turn of the twentieth century America's elite were infatuated with the idea of strengthening the American race by practicing eugenics on those undesirables that society wanted to get rid of: imbeciles, criminals, people with physical and mental show more defects, epileptics, sexually promiscuous women and more. Nazi Germany used America's eugenics rhetoric, research, and court cases as a model for their racial cleansing plan. By the time it was finally considered faux pas and barbaric, more than 70,000 American's had been sterilized, most without their consent or knowledge. Meticulously researched (although sometimes a little bogged down with details on key figures), this book is a scary piece of America's past and very timely as bigotry continues to rise again. show less