General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Worst Supreme Court decision of all time [View all]thucythucy
(8,167 posts)I voted for Dred Scott, for all the reasons already enumerated. That decision was SO wrong, and so damaging not only to millions of people, but to the very soul of this nation, such as it was and is. Racism and white supremacy writ large, without doubt and without apology.
"Buck v. Bell" though has a place of dishonor as probably the worst ever USSC decision regarding people with disabilities. In it, the court ruled in 1927 that people with disabilities could be sterilized by the states against their will, at the discretion of state authorities.
Carrie Buck was a 17 year old Virginia woman who had been placed in foster care and then in an institution because of her alleged cognitive disabilities. While in foster care she was raped, and as a result became pregnant, and was thus charged with being a "moral imbecile." (Yes, that was the term used). The child she then bore was also alleged to be "mentally retarded." Fully in the throes of the bogus eugenics movement, the state of Virginia wanted to sterilize her so Carrie could have no more "imbecile" children. Buck went to court to prevent it, and the case was argued all the way to the Supreme Court.
In writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote "three generations of imbeciles are enough." (It was alleged that Buck's parents were also disabled). The decision led to a flood--perhaps tens if not hundreds of thousands--of forced sterilizations of people with disabilities. (Little known historical fact: the vasectomy was perfected as a surgical procedure by doctors experimenting on disabled boys locked into state institutions. It was also a common practice in some institutions to castrate any and all males, once they reached puberty). As it turned out, Carrie Buck's daughter Vivian would make the honor roll in her high school. Some "imbecile."
At least one other member of Buck's family--her sister Doris--was also forcibly sterilized. They were, according to eugenics "expert" Harry Laughlin, members of "the shiftless, ignorant and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South." He made this determination without ever examining anyone in the Buck family. But while "Buck v. Bell" was in this instance about "white trash" the decision was applied with at least equal vengence to poor Blacks.
State laws pushing the forced sterilization of people with disabilities remained on the books until the 1970s, and were used by the German Nazis as models for their Nuremburg Laws. In fact, American eugenicists had close ties with German Nazis all through the 1930s.
A good reference on this is Stephen Trombley, "The Right to Reproduce: A History of Coercive Sterilization." A good quick summary of the case occurs in Fred Pelka, "The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Disability Rights Movement" (1997).