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eugenics

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Tornado over the Texas capitol building.

The History of Eugenics in Texas Isn’t What You Think

A new book unearths a chapter of the state’s story when anti-intellectual fundamentalism was put to good ends.
by Gus Bova via Texas Observer on July 14, 2025
RFK Jr speaking at a podium.

RFK’s Ideas About “Wellness Farms” for Young People Are Eugenic and Unconstitutional

RFK’s call for “wellness farms” revives a grim legacy of forced labor, racial injustice, and eugenics disguised as mental health reform.
by Kylie Smith via Nursing Clio on May 8, 2025
Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

Who Shall and Shall Not Have a Place in the World?

Can the racialist and eugenicist roots of statistics can be cordoned off from “proper” science?
by Lily Hu via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 13, 2025
Julian Huxley sitting with a chimpanzee.

Julian S. Huxley, the Man Who Put Eugenics Into UNESCO

Why did the first director of the UN agency think eugenics held the key to a more evolved, harmonious world?
by Stefan Bernhardt-Radu via Aeon on December 2, 2024
Nurses with babies

Legacies of Eugenics: An Introduction

Despite assumptions about its demise, it is still enmeshed in the foundations of how some professions think about the world.
by Osagie K. Obasogie via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 17, 2024
Cartoon spoofing weight loss and weight gain patent medicines.

How the Use of BMI Fetishizes White Embodiment and Racializes Fat Phobia

Size-based health and beauty ideals emanated from eugenic pseudoscientific postulates, and BMI continues to advance white supremacist embodiment norms. 
by Sabrina Strings via AMA Journal Of Ethics on July 1, 2023
Margaret Sanger in 1928.

The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Ghost of Margaret Sanger

Religious conservatives see “anti-eugenic” laws as the most promising path to establish a federal ban on abortion.
by Melinda Cooper via Dissent on January 17, 2023
Demonstrators protest involuntarily institutionalization of mentally ill homeless people.
partner

Locking Up the Mentally Ill Has a Long History

The prospect of removing people from communities to be put in institutions has been a project of social control.
by Elliott Young via Made By History on January 3, 2023
Horse and rider at 1917 Kentucky Derby
partner

Fast Horses and Eugenics

The breeding of race horses validated those aspiring to belong to an American elite while feeding into racist beliefs about genetic inheritance.
by Livia Gershon, Brian Tyrrell via JSTOR Daily on May 4, 2022
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
Carrie Buck and her mother, Emma, at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, 1924

The Chilling Persistence of Eugenics

Elizabeth Catte’s new book traces a shameful history and its legacy today.
by Chris Lehmann via The New Republic on April 20, 2021
Elizabeth Catte and her book

'Pure America': Eugenics Past and Present

Historian Elizabeth Catte traces the history and influence of eugenics from her backyard across the country.
by Elizabeth Catte, Adam Willems via Scalawag on March 2, 2021

How Eugenics Shaped Statistics

Exposing the damned lies of three science pioneers.
by Aubrey Clayton via Nautilus on October 28, 2020

Trump's Touting of 'Racehorse Theory' Tied to Eugenics and Nazis Alarms Jewish Leaders

President Trump has alarmed Jewish leaders by appearing to endorse 'racehorse theory' — used by eugenicists and Nazis last century.
by Seema Mehta via Los Angeles Times on October 5, 2020

UVA and the History of Race: Eugenics, the Racial Integrity Act, Health Disparities

Reflections on the long career of race science at Mr. Jefferson's university.
by P. Preston Reynolds via UVA Today on January 9, 2020

American Immigration: A Century of Racism

Discussions of eugenics and other fascistic ideas in American history tend to provoke the defense that they never took root. So why do they keep flowering?
by Sarah Churchwell via New York Review of Books on September 12, 2019

The Eugenicists on Abortion

Contrary to what Clarence Thomas recently claimed, eugenicists never favored abortion as a means of population control.
by Karen Weingarten via Nursing Clio on July 2, 2019
Justice Clarence Thomas arrives for the ceremonial swearing-in of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the East Room of the White House on Oct. 8, 2018.

Why Clarence Thomas Is Trying to Bring Eugenics Into the Abortion Debate

They really do not have anything to do with each other.
by Adam S. Cohen, Dahlia Lithwick via Slate on June 17, 2019

Clarence Thomas Used My Book to Argue Against Abortion

The justice used my book to tie abortion to eugenics. But his rendition of the history is incorrect.
by Adam S. Cohen via The Atlantic on May 29, 2019
Hands waving US and pride flags during the National LGBT Anniversary Ceremony in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 2015.
partner

How Eugenics Gave Rise To Modern Homophobia

The roots of anti-gay attitudes lay in white supremacy.
by Hugh Ryan via Made By History on May 28, 2019

White Nationalists Held a Race Rally in Charlottesville. The Location Was No Coincidence.

The region was at the epicenter of eugenic policy-making in the first half of the 20th century.
by Frederick Coye Heard via Scalawag on August 13, 2018

From Mooktie to Juan: The Eugenic Origins of the 'Defective Immigrant'

How eugenics shaped America's immigration policy.
by Aparna Nair via Nursing Clio on June 28, 2018

The Black Politics of Eugenics

For much of the twentieth century, African Americans embraced eugenics as a means of racial improvement.
by Ayah Nuriddin via Nursing Clio on June 1, 2017
Carrie Buck with her mother Emma.

The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement

It's impossible to revisit the history of America's quest for racial purity without sometimes being reminded of the current public discourse.
by Andrea DenHoed via The New Yorker on April 27, 2016

Harvard’s Eugenics Era

When academics embraced scientific racism, immigration restrictions, and the suppression of “the unfit”.
by Adam S. Cohen via Harvard Magazine on March 1, 2016
Anatomical diagram of a man's head with a landscape and shining sun where the brain would be.

What Does ‘Genius’ Really Mean?

Humans have long tried to understand a quicksilver quality that defies explanation.
by Helen Lewis via The Atlantic on August 14, 2025
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
A hand made into a fist is camouflaged against the American flag.

The Dark Parallels Between 1920s America and Today’s Political Climate

The early 1920s in the US offers historical lessons on how current pessimism about the state of the country can manifest in dangerous, discriminatory ways.
by Alex Green via The Conversation on March 10, 2025
Herbert Spencer

The Man Who Believed in Nothing - Part II

Spencerism in America.
by Henry Snow via Another Way on March 4, 2025
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