Voting Station

Carrie Buck

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Victim

The Resume

    (July 3, 1906-January 28, 1983)
    Born in Charlottesville, Virginia
    Plaintiff in the case Buck v Bell challenging the Virginia eugenics law allowing compulsory sterilization of the 'feeble-minded'
    Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the law did not violate the Constitution (1927)
    Was subsequently sterilized by tubal ligation
    An estimated 60,000 Americans were sterilized under similar laws
    Virginia's law was repealed in 1974

Why she might be annoying:

    She was committed to the State Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded after having a child out of wedlock.
    According to Colony Superintendent Albert Priddy, at 18 she had a mental age of nine.
    After concluding that she, her mother and her daughter were all feebleminded, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared, 'Three generations of imbeciles are enough.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    Her attorney was actually an supporter of eugenic sterilization and, not too surprisingly, put up a less than vigorous defense.
    The Supreme Court accepted testimony from state officials that the Bucks were feebleminded without asking for any independent assessment of their intelligence.
    She got pregnant not out of 'promiscuity' as the state alleged, but from being raped by her foster mother's nephew.
    Her commitment to the State Colony may have been the foster family's attempt to cover up for the nephew.
    Several people who interviewed her late in life said she was of perfectly normal intelligence.
    The school records of her daughter Vivian (who died of colitis at age eight) are mixed but indicate generally average intelligence. (Their highlight: Made the honor roll one semester. Lowlight: Was held back one semester.)
    At the unveiling of a historic marker at her birthplace (2002), Governor Mark Warner offered 'the Commonwealth's sincere apology for Virginia's participation in eugenics,' adding 'The eugenics movement was a shameful effort in which state government never should have been involved.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 64 Votes: 56.25% Annoying