Legacy of American Eugenics: Buck v. Bell in the Supreme Court
Channel: University of Michigan Library
Date: 2012-03-08

This presentation, "The Legacy of American Eugenics: Buck v. Bell in the Supreme Court", was given by Dr. Paul A. Lombardo on Thursday, February 9th, 2012, in Kahn Auditorium in the A. Alfred Taubman Biomedical Research Science Building at The University of Michigan. Dr. Lombardo discussed details of the Buck case, and how it became one of the symbolic high points for the eugenic movement in the United States as the keynote address for the opening reception of the Holocaust Memorial Museum Exhibit "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race", hosted by the Taubman Health Sciences Library at the University of Michigan from February 3, 2012 through April 3, 2012.

The "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" exhibit includes a segment on Buck v. Bell, the 1927 United States Supreme Court case that endorsed state laws mandating the eugenic sterilization of "feebleminded" and "socially inadequate" people in state institutions. That case and the laws that it validated preceded the 1934 Nazi law for sterilizing the 'hereditarily diseased" under which more than 400,000 operations occurred in Nazi Germany.

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