American Civil LibertiesUnion Agreement what of harvard law school, he was president of volume 100 of the harvard law review some previous his latest book chronicles the Supreme Courts decision in 1927 to allow virginia to sterilize a young woman for eugenic reasons. It is called a book that takes to us a rarely remembered part heist. Cohens narrative of the thats enshined the practices is a pageturner, and the story it tells is deeply, almost physically, infuriating. Were very please to bring the conversation to Harvard Book Store testimony please join me in welcoming adam cohen. [applause] thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here. Id like to thank Harvard Book Store for hosting a wonderful book store i used to spend a lot of time in when i was here in a previous life. And thank you all for turning out, including some old friends here. I had a book party in new york recently, and the invitation that went out automatically, as these things are now, said at the top imbeciles book party and some of any friends own. I think this was build at imbeciles book talk. Were halfway between my freshman dorm and the College Newspaper and it feels great to be back. So in 1927, the Supreme Court was asked to decide a simple question. Should virginia be allowed to sterilize carrie buck, 20yearold inmate of the state colonial for epileptics who war declared the be feeble minded in an 81 written by Oliver Wendell holme, no part of the cation. Equal protection, protected carrie buck from below stealized against her will. The court strongly endorsed the Eugenics Movement and issued a clarion call to the nation to allstarize more unfit people. Justice holmes wrote the nation had to sterile iowa those show sap the strength of the state. He lee cleared it is bet for all the world if instead of waiting to execution degenerate offspring for crime or let them starve, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Then holme went on to include in the doing one of the most brutal aforrisms. Holmes, the the hard educated, said of carrie buck, he mother and young daughter, three generations of imbeciles are enough. When legal scholars rank the Supreme Courts worst decisions the competition is considerable. There was the dred scott case in which the court rule an enslaved man had no right to sue in court for this freedom. And there was thecourt upheld internment of japanese americans during world war ii. Always be differences of opinions over which of these rulings should be on a list of the worst decisions and how they should be ranked but there can be no doubt this could be in its place. Not 0 only was carrie bach sterilized against her will but 70,000 americans were sterilized. Men of the victims were perfectly normal, mentally and physically and desperately wanted to have children. Buck vs. Bells reachedaround the United States inch nazi party, on the flies germany, used america for a model for its ostealization program and the Supreme Court ruling the german courts ordered 357,000. Sterilizes and nazis responsible for sterilizations cited buck versus bell in their defense. While many of the courts worst decisions part of american history, buck vwell is not bell remembered in law school it is rarely discussed or mentioned only in passing. The leading american constitutional law treatise which weighs in at 1,700 page keys votes half a center and a footnote to the case. Id like to talk about buck v bell, a thats became more interesting is a learned about it and i want to offer thought why it remains portion and then open this up and get a conversation going the United States in the 19 to 20s was caught up in mania. The drive to use newly discovered hereditary signs. Modern the United States suddenly had in enemy, bad germ peninsulas simple peninsulas peninsulas plasma and those who carried it. Americas leading citizens led the charge to save humanity. John d. Rockefeller, jr. Alex sir graham bell, and former president Theodore Roosevelt who took the to the pages of the National Magazine to seines the up fit must be forbidden to leave offspring. Organizations with names like the committee to study and report on the best practical means of caughting off the defective jean plasma in the womens clubs invite lecturers to speak on the subject of arranging eugene nick marriages, clergymen come speeded in National Contests on topics like religion and jew generallics does the church have any honest for improving human stock. Magazines explained the concept to the public. The inspiring and wonderful message of the new her ready. Conferences were held. The American Museum of Natural History in new york hosted the Second International eugenics conference, truly terrible gathering and the u. S. State department sent out invitations. Universities were quick to embrace eugenics and give it their bill almost talk to imprimatur. It was taught 300 universes and colleges, including here at harvard, columbia, berkeley, and cornell, the driving force was the collective fears of the classes about a managing america. Record levels of immigration were transforming the nations ethnic and religious makeup and with increased industrialization and urbanization, community and family ties were fraying and the anxieties were expressed in the forms about fears of the ungets. Eugene nicks offer one solution for the threat from without and one for the danger from within. The answer to foreign threat was new immigration laws to limit nonNorthern Europeans in the country. The eugenics claim theyd had high number of defects degrading americas gene pool. Other things they claimed that between 40 and 50 of jewish immigrants were memory defective. Congress held hearings in which various nationalities were explained. Act only the arguments congress documented the immigration act of 1924 which invited in more immigrants from Northern Europe and closed the door to southern and Eastern Europeans. The harm that disimmigration law did was immense. Most of all to the jews of Eastern Europe who would soon be trying to flee nazi germis ideas ideal regime and would find the door shut in the 1940s at to frank wrote for visas for his wife and daughter, margo and ann, but was turned down because of the 1924 act. So when we think about ann frank its true she died because of the nazis thought jews were racially inferior and she also died there because the u. S. Come believed the same thing in addition to immigration limits, to deal with the external threat, eugenicists they began in coat in 1895, with laws prohibiting various kinds on people deemed to be heredityial unfit to marry. Next they promoted segregation, as they called it, placed, quote, defective people in state institutions temperature their reproductive years to prevent tremendous from passing their flaws on to a new generation, but holding that many people in institutions for so long was expensive. Finally they turned to sterilization which could be cared out on mass scale. Starting in indiana states adopted legislation authorizings forced sterileeyation of people judge to having hereditary defects. Their greatest target was the feeble minded, a loose designation that included people who were mentally challenged. Women considered to be excessively interested in sex and other category odd of individuals who offended the middle class sense instants of judges and social workers. Fears of the tide of feeble mindeds in rose to panic levels and they argued that it unlies al of our social problems including crime, poverty, and prostitution. The eugenic sterilizeways moms moe prominent leader insist today remove 15 Million People would have to undergo the knife. Virginia was late to adopt eugenic sterilization, it waited until 1924, 17 years after indiana. What put it in the center of the legal battles when virginia hospitals decided they didnt want to sterilize anyone until the lieu was tested in the courts awful the way up to the Supreme Court. They decided to create a test case. It was carrie bucks misforeign to be the wrong place at the wrong time. I it as sad andunder fewer rating story. She was rayed in offered by a single mother and taken in by a foster family. There was nothing long with her physically or mentally but she was raped she became pregnant she was shipped i shift up a to the state clonal for epileptics and arrived just when the colonys superintendent was looking forren an inmate to put the center of his test case. Carrie had the personal attributes they were looking for, she was designated teen. Mined and as a woman who had given birth out of wedlock she embodiesed the eugene nick nightmare of people reproducing rapidly and flooding the nation with so call defectives. Carrie had the sort of family. Herma was a colony inmate who had been digsed feeble minds, although likely she was not, and she had other relatives in the institution which could help the state establish a hereditary pattern. There was more to the story but no one was interested hearing it elm has was feeble minded does spite the stayses unreliable intelligence testing heifer School Records which the colony was not interested in, reveal her to be of perfectly normal intelligence and she had never had a seizure and never would the colony held a hearing where she should be sterileees, a proceeding heavily stacked again her, approval she should be and it was this order that was appeal through the virginia courts up to the u. S. Supreme court. Nations rely on civil society, public and private institutions, devoted to higher values to promote truth and justice and keep them on the right path. Four of the nations most respected professions were involved in carrie bucks case, medicine, academia, law, and the judiciary, in the form of four powerful men. Of of them was on the wrong side, the man selected care where i to be plated hone was a physician who served as superintendent of the colony for epileptics and feeble mind and one of the main people who lobbied the log tour to pass the sterilization law. The his campaign he had much of the medical profession behind him. Across the countries doctors took a leading role in promoting eugenics and sterilization, medical journals were filled with articles advocating sterilization with titles like race suicide for social parasites. The head of the eugene us office in new york was the scientist who gave Expert Opinion that the virginia law should be upset and carrie should be stabilized. He was the most prominent advocate for eugenic sterilization and drafted the model law the states were using. Laughlin, who had a doctorate in biology from prince ten was a representative of his academic peers. Many of the nations most prominent academic scientists strongly supported eugenics and sterilization, thester of this academic support was right here at harvard university. President Charles William elliott addressed a 1912 meeting of the harvard club of san francisco, advocating for racial purity. He wrote an article supporting sterilizeddize and was Vice President of the first eugenics conference in london in 1912, and two leading hard vair geneticists were advocates for eugenics of thirdly, a lawyer who drafted the virginia sterilization law went on to defend any the courts up to the Supreme Court. Lawyers also offered strong support for eugenics, among the influential voices praising connecticuts first in the nation law was the president of the american bar association, who declared eugene nick marriage laws necessary to protect, quote, future generations from the evil operation of the laws. Finally, it was the great Oliver Wendell holmes who had the last word on carries fate and who with his broad link hid prestige to the sterilization cause. Holme did not find enjoyment but would later say that upholding the law and the sterilization had given him real pleasure. Of of all the profession is it was the jew dish contrarys role the most disappoint, the Supreme Court had some of the leading of american law, the chief justice, william taft, who was president , and lewis brandeis, and there was holmes, former harvard law professor and the most respected justice in Supreme Court history. When the case reached the nine great men they got the facts wrong, the legal analysis was shoddy and the vote was not close. Those who air brushed buck v bell from history would offer the simple explanation, it is an anomaly. The Supreme Court, they would say, was brief live caught up in eugenics because short lived onetime mistake the issues it raises are ones the nation long ago put behind it. But this argument has serious flaws. First, unlike so many of the courts worst rulings buck v. Bell has never been overruled in ha 1942 case thecourt struck down on oklahoma law proceeding for sterilization of certain criminals but on very narrow grounds. The court expressly chose not to overturn or limit buck v intel after the ruling states continued to sterilize thousands of people. At recently as 2001 a u. S. Supreme court of appeals in missouri, one step below the Supreme Court, cited buck v. Bell in rule thong case of a mildly retarded woman order bid the state to be sterilized. Second, theres nothing outdated about the cases subject matter in 1938 owners board of eugenics was still functioning and performed the last sterilization in 1981. In 2014, investigative reporters discovered that 150 female prisoners in kaz had been sterilized between 2006 and 2010, not always with the womans consent, and other examples of eugene nick sterilization done unofficially emerged with disturb regularity. More broadly, the 21st century below hailed as the century of biology arranges era that experts say will be defined be the new biology of genomic research. Scientists are now able to edit human embryos paving the way for what the brees dubbed designer babies. This wig make it easier for the state to impress eugenics. The deepest subject us a timeless one, power, and how those who have it use it against those who do not. Carrie was at the bottom of the nations economic and social hierarchy. In her plea to the court she is asking for protection from powerful people and institutions that threaten to do her harm. Thought the history that is no a good position to be. The ancient law that french archaeologists uncovered in 1902 including 282 distinct laws covering liability for neglect acts and the presumption of innocence. The code had an eloquent statement of its own purpose. To bring about the rule of righteousness on the land so the strong should not harm the weak. That simple ideal remains more than 3,500 years later, the laws highest calling but is a vision the american legal system has all too often failed to live up to. Dred scott, homer, fred korematsu, all weaker parties justly harmed by stronger ones who came to Supreme Court seeking justice inch each case the court sided with the strong and american laws tendency to favor the powerful could be one of its defining features inch the end this is most troubling thing about buck v. Bell. Presented the course with with a stark choice between the ideal and the opposite. The ancient principle of justice teaches the purpose of law ties ensure the strong do not harm the weekful the ueugenicsists said was the laws duty to help. The Supreme Court did not merely side with the strong, it enthusiastically urged them on, insisting it would be better for all the world if societys strongest members finished off people like carrie once and for all. Even the babylonians in other words that helping the strong to obliterate the weak is the very opposite of justice. [applause] this made me feel uncoverrable but a im an on obstetrician for 40 years and have done abortions and one of the main reason he wad done abortionses was to eradicate month mongooid. And the weak shouldnt be hurt by the strong. I feel uncomfortable about what i might have done. Theres a plot of nuance here and you could say one level of ugenerallics that is very disturbing is the kind that carrie buck experienced where the state imposed it on her as a potential parent. The stayed made the decision she could not reproduce. And that is a very high level. Sounds like maybe youre talking about a different case where the parents have made the decision. A very common thing. In the sense that jew eugenics in termination of pregnancy was practice. But with the consent of the parent. With the consent of the parent but not the fetus. Right. Im just distinguishing when those two case but this still puts us in an area of eugene nicks some people may not feel comfort able and if wonder if other people have thoughts about it. Theres been a number of different journalists recently who have been talking about the rise of mesh authoritarianism, and im just wondering how you kind of view this conversation within the Current Movement of donald trump and the direction towards basically people feeling socially threatened as far as the mores of our society and he movement in that area and how that makes them react in a very protectionist and overbearingly author tarynan way towards those who are not in power. Great point. And we could definitely draw a lot of parallels win the 1920s and today. It was time of great transition, also, a item of very high levels of immigration. The eugenicists were very scared of new immigrants who often were of a different religion and looked different, and a lot of the people who were most active in Eugenic Movement were the middle clarks upper clarks white president standses who felt there world was slipping away fro