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. 
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.
Demonstrators protest involuntarily institutionalization of mentally ill homeless people.
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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.
Horse and rider at 1917 Kentucky Derby
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

How Eugenics Shaped Statistics

Exposing the damned lies of three science pioneers.

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.

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.

American Immigration: A Century of Racism

On Daniel Okrent's "The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America."

The Eugenicists on Abortion

Contrary to what Clarence Thomas recently claimed, eugenicists never favored abortion as a means of population control.
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.

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.
Hands waving US and pride flags during the National LGBT Anniversary Ceremony in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 2015.
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How Eugenics Gave Rise To Modern Homophobia

The roots of anti-gay attitudes lay in white supremacy.

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.

Bad Blood

The history of eugenics in the Progressive Age.

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

How eugenics shaped America's immigration policy.

The Black Politics of Eugenics

For much of the twentieth century, African Americans embraced eugenics as a means of racial improvement.