LOS ANGELES - TelAve -- The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International has called for a nationwide, meaningful apology and compensation from federal and state governments, as well as mental health professionals, for the abuse suffered by African, Native, Asian and Hispanic Americans who were targeted by eugenics and sterilization programs throughout the 1900s. CCHR says that the legacy of these programs is still evident today, with these groups disproportionately subjected to stigmatizing and potentially harmful mental health treatments. CCHR's demand comes in the wake of a recent New Zealand government apology to 200,000 children and vulnerable adults who were tortured in psychiatric and behavioral institutions steeped in eugenics. Many of the targeted individuals were members of the Indigenous Māori community.[1] Māori children were especially over-represented in one of the worst institutions for torture using electroshock treatment, the now-closed Lake Alice psychiatric hospital.[2]

On September 30, California's governor signed a law extending the deadline for sterilization survivors previously denied compensation under a 2021 reparations program. These survivors now have until January 1, 2025, to appeal. The California Victim Compensation Board will have an extra 15 months to review and process appeals. As of October 4, 2024, the board has approved far fewer payments than it denied, with only 118 victims receiving $35,000.[3] A 2016 study estimated that up to 831 survivors of coercive eugenic sterilizations in California may still be alive. Researchers say their experiences, along with the racial injustices inflicted by these institutions, deserve long-overdue recognition and acknowledgment.[4]

The U.S. has a long history rooted in eugenics, the racist psychological theory of "inferiority," and its impact continues to be felt today. Psychiatry Online reported, "Looking back almost 100 years, one finds that scattered reports have documented overrepresentation of black patients relative to white patients in psychiatric inpatient treatment facilities" in the U.S. Blacks receive inpatient treatment more often than non-Hispanic whites.[5]

In the early to mid-1900s, California's eugenics programs were partly fueled by anti-Asian and anti-Mexican prejudice, while Southern states used sterilization to control African American populations. The U.S. led internationally in eugenics, with its sterilization laws influencing Nazi Germany.[6] The Third Reich's 1933 "Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases" was modeled on laws in Indiana and California, resulting in the sterilization of approximately 400,000 children and adults.[7]

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Thousands of Native American women were sterilized against their will by the Indian Health Service (IHS) in the 1960s and 1970s. The IHS "operated under historical assumptions that native people and people of color were morally, mentally, and socially defective long after it was founded in 1955." This mentality led to forced sterilizations, as some IHS doctors believed "American Indian and other minority women had the intelligence to use other methods of birth control effectively and that there were already too many minority individuals causing problems in the nation," writes historian Jane Lawrence.[8]

Even after 1974 legislation aimed at protecting women from forced sterilization, abuses continued. Between 1970 and 1976, 25-50% of Native American women were sterilized.[9] And in the late 1990s, women of color were sterilized in CA prisons.[10]

Combined with the forced assimilation of Native American children of earlier generations in compulsory boarding schools and placing Native American children in foster care, "the forced sterilization of Native American women is another page in the long book of abuse wrought upon Native peoples by the United States," journalist and author Erin Blakemore wrote.[11]

A December 2023 study in Social Forces states, "'Feeblemindedness' was the most pervasive diagnostic label, describing a patient's perceived inability to work productively or conform to norms." Eugenicists viewed these traits as hereditary, using terms like "feeblemindedness" to mark individuals for institutionalization and sterilization.[12]

The study notes that California authorities blamed foreign-born populations for rising "insanity." Racism influenced who was labeled "unfit" and shaped disability labels tied to mental illness, reinforcing border control to block "diseased" immigrants. The authors argue that systemic biases persist in public health systems today.

The apologies and compensation given to date for the psychological and psychiatric movement of eugenics are appallingly inadequate, CCHR says.

In 2015, the US Senate voted unanimously to help surviving victims of forced sterilization. North Carolina has paid an unacceptable $35,000 to 220 surviving victims of its eugenics program. Virginia agreed to give surviving victims a paltry $25,000 each.[13]

In 2021, the American Psychiatric Association issued an apology for psychiatry's "role in perpetrating structural racism" and "history of actions…that hurt Black, Indigenous, and People of Color" (BIPOC).[14] However, Rev. Fred Shaw, a spokesperson for CCHR's Task Force Against Racism and Modern-Day Eugenics rejected the apology as prompted by self-interests—the availability of research funds into the impact of racism and institutionalizing, drugging and electroshocking a new generation of minorities impacted by racism. He said, "As a member of the Black community, I don't accept the apology, which seems steeped in the desire to profit from the abuse of our community and that of Indigenous Americans, Hispanic and Asian Americans."

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CCHR is calling for a meaningful apology and adequate compensation from federal and state governments, as well as mental health professionals, for abuses against African, Native, Asian, and Hispanic Americans. CCHR's demand is bolstered by actions like New Zealand's recent apology to Indigenous Māori children abused in psychiatric institutions, believing similar recognition and reparations are long overdue in the U.S.

About CCHR: Founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, CCHR has helped enact over 190 laws protecting patients from abuse in the mental health system.

[1] www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/royal-commission-of-inquiry-into-abuse-in-care-government-broadly-accepts-findings-of-landmark-report/; www.cchrint.org/2024/07/26/new-zealand-inquiry-findings-child-psychiatric-torture-prompt-us-reforms/
[2] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10466991/
[3] www.kqed.org/news/12008246/i-would-have-been-a-great-mom-california-finally-pays-reparations-to-woman-it-sterilized
[4] academic.oup.com/sf/article/102/2/706/7147029?login=false
[5] psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ps.2009.60.6.779
[6] www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/
[7] www.cchrint.org/mock-trial-in-new-york-convicts-former-nazi-psychiatrist-ernst-rudin-of-crimes-against-humanity/; theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144
[8] daily.jstor.org/the-little-known-history-of-the-forced-sterilization-of-native-american-women/
[9] daily.jstor.org/the-little-known-history-of-the-forced-sterilization-of-native-american-women/; www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/
[10] www.kqed.org/news/12008246/i-would-have-been-a-great-mom-california-finally-pays-reparations-to-woman-it-sterilized
[11] daily.jstor.org/the-little-known-history-of-the-forced-sterilization-of-native-american-women/
[12] academic.oup.com/sf/article/102/2/706/7147029?login=false
[13] www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/
[14] www.cchrint.org/2021/01/26/american-psychiatric-associations-apology-for-harming-african-americans-rejected/, citing www.medscape.com/viewarticle/944352?src=wnl_edit_tpal&uac=345404PY&impID=3143084&faf=1