The Legacy of American Eugenics: Buck v. Bell in the Supreme Court

This keynote address and book signing immediately follow the Opening Reception that is scheduled from 5:30-6:30pm at the Taubman Health Sciences Library. These events are free and open to the public.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum Exhibit "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" includes a segment on Buck v. Bell, the 1927 United States Supreme Court case that endorsed state laws mandating the eugenic sterilization of "feebleminded" and "socially inadequate" people in state institutions. That case and the laws that it validated preceded the 1934 Nazi law for sterilizing the 'hereditarily diseased" under which more than 400,000 operations occurred in Nazi Germany. Professor Lombardo will discuss details of the Buck case, and how it became one of the symbolic high points for the eugenic movement in the United States.

Paul A. Lombardo holds the Bobby Lee Cook Chair as Professor of Law at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, in Washington, D.C. He was a contributor and consultant for the original 2004 installation of the U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum Exhibit, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race.

Common Language Bookstore will sell copies of Dr. Lombardo’s most recent book, “A Century of Eugenics in America,” for signing at the end of the talk.

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race. Free Admission.

Free parking will be available in the in the Catherine St. parking structure blue spaces starting at 5:15pm on 2/9/12. Other campus parking locations can be found on this map.

The exhibition installation and related events are generously cosponsored by the Medical School Dean's Office, Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine, Center for International and Comparative Studies, Institute for the Humanities, Department of Medical Education: Division of Anatomical Sciences, History Department, Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Genetic Counseling Program, and Department of Human Genetics.