Buck v. Bell

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A marker on Preston Avenue in Charlottesville says the following:

BUCK v. BELL In 1924, Virginia, like a majority of states then, enacted eugenic sterilization laws. Virginia’s law allowed state institutions to operate on individuals to prevent the conception of what were believed to be “genetically inferior” children. Charlottesville native Carrie Buck (1906–1983), involuntarily committed to a state facility near Lynchburg, was chosen as the first person to be sterilized under the new law. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, on 2 May 1927, affirmed the Virginia law. After Buck more than 8,000 other Virginians were sterilized before the most relevant parts of the Act were repealed in 1974. Later evidence eventually showed that Buck and many others had no “hereditary defects.” She is buried south of here.

The marker was dedicated on May 2, 2002. (Lombardo, Paul A., Three Generations, No Imbeciles, p. 262, Johns Hopkins 2008)


The case of Buck v. Bell upheld Virginia’s law implementing a policy supporting the use of a concept called eugenics. Eugenics aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population by encouraging the procreation of the genetically superior while discouraging, or even sterilizing, the genetically inferior. (Nourse, Victoria F., In Reckless Hands, p. 20, W. W. Norton New York 2008.)

Carrie Buck

Carrie Buck was a Charlottesville resident who was sent to the Virginia Colony, a state facility in Lynchburg for the handling of “undesirables,” which the state considered to be epileptics and the “feeble minded.” The “feeble minded” were persons of limited intelligence, the congenitally blind, and promiscuous women. (Lombardo, Paul A., Three Generations, No Imbeciles, p. 10-11, Johns Hopkins 2008)

Carrie Buck was born on July 2, 1906. She was committed to the Virginia Colony on June 4, 1924. Prior to being admitted, Carrie gave birth to a daughter. It was primarily because she was pregnant at a young age that led to Carrie’s commitment. She had no physical abnormalities, and suffered from no known mental diseases. (Id. at 103-105 )

The Case

Doctors at the Virginia Colony had been seeking greater legal tools to rid Virginia of undesirables. On March 24, 1924, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act to provide for the sterilization of inmates at Virginia’s state institutions. The law would provide “scientific management” to Virginia’s social problems. The law allowed the superintendents of the various State institutions to decide to sterilize inmates after petitioning a state board and providing the inmate a hearing before the board. Following the hearing, the inmate could be sterilized if the board found the inmate was “insane, idiotic, imbecile, feeble-minded, or epileptic, and by the laws of heredity is the probably potential parent of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted.” (Id., 98-100, 288-292)