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Title card for "Legacies of Eugenics" series, with a drawing of a form board for teaching shapes.

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

On the troubling history of IQ tests and special education.
by Pepper Stetler via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 8, 2025
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Special Education: The 50-Year Fight for the Right to Learn

Today’s special education system was shaped five decades ago, when parents fought for disabled children’s right to learn.
by Karen M. Sughrue, Michael Kranz, Heru Muharrar via Retro Report on June 24, 2021

Executing 'Idiots'

Would the Founders have protected people we execute now?
by Michael Clemente via The Marshall Project on July 27, 2015
A view of a hallway inside of an archive lined with bookshelves.

On the Dark History and Ongoing Ableist Legacy of the IQ Test

How research helps us understand the past to create a better future.
by Pepper Stetler via Literary Hub on August 23, 2024
House Energy Committee Chairwoman Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) speaks during a subcommittee hearing about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic on Feb. 8.
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The Eugenic Roots of ‘Quality Adjusted Life Years,’ and Why They Matter

Why a powerful House Republican wants to ban a common insurance practice.
by Pepper Stetler via Made By History on March 8, 2023
Bobby Seal and Huey Newton standig in front of a Black Panther Party sign

How Huey P. Newton’s Early Intellectual Life Led Him To Activism

The role of family in Huey P. Newton's educational journey.
by Mark Whitaker via Literary Hub on February 13, 2023
Spectrum of color from red to blue.

A Little Spectrum-y

What the autism diagnosis says about you.
by Emer Lucey via The Drift on January 20, 2022

Gump Talk

25 years later, what does Gump mean?
via Contingent on July 1, 2019
Identical twin girls wearing event entry bracelets and blue ribbon medals.

The Intriguing History of the Autism Diagnosis

How an autism diagnosis became both a clinical label and an identity; a stigma to be challenged and a status to be embraced.
by Bonnie Evans via Aeon on January 8, 2018
Doctors performing a lobotomy while others watch.
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Lobotomy: A Dangerous Fad's Lingering Effect on Mental Illness Treatment

From the 1930s to the 1950s a radical surgery — the lobotomy — would forever change our understanding and treatment of the mentally ill.
by Barbara Dury, Margaret M. Ebrahim via Retro Report on April 16, 2017
A stuffed bear in a room of empty children's beds at Willowbrook Hospital.

The Horrors of Hepatitis Research

The abusive experiments on mentally disabled children at Willowbrook State School were only one part of a much larger unethical research program.
by Carl Elliott via New York Review of Books on October 31, 2024
A three panel image of Carrie Buck, Britney Spears, and Ann Cooper Hewitt.

Britney Spears, Carrie Buck and the Awful History of Controlling ‘Unfit’ Women

Behind Britney Spears's struggle to regain control of her fortune and her medical decisions is a long history of robbing women of basic freedoms.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on September 30, 2021
A scientific instrument

How the Sinister Study of Eugenics Legitimized Forced Sterilization in the United States

Audrey Clare Farley on the scientists who weaponized biology.
by Audrey Clare Farley via Literary Hub on April 22, 2021
Student completing standardized test

The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing

From grade school to college, students of color have suffered from the effects of biased testing.
by John Rosales, Tim Walker via National Education Association on March 20, 2021
Missouri State Hospital No. 3.

The Incredible Story of 'Drawings from Inside State Hospital No. 3'

In 1970, a hand-bound portfolio of nearly 300 drawings is found in a dumpster. It would take 41 years to identify the artist who drew them.
by Gabrielle Bruney via Vice on May 13, 2016
Clara Newton at her home outside Baltimore, holding a picture of her son Odell, who has been in prison for 41 years for a crime he committed when he was 16. State officials have recommended Odell for release three times since 1992, but he has not been freed. August 4, 2015.

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Politicians are suddenly eager to disown failed policies on American prisons, but they have failed to reckon with the history.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on September 15, 2015
Children in New York City waiting in line for immunization shots, 1944

Vaccination Resistance in Historical Perspective

The vaccination skepticism of today is rooted in postwar social movements, prompting a new generation of parents and children to question drugs and doctors.
by Elena Conis via Teaching American History on August 1, 2015

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