N.C. may compensate sterilization victims

By Jon Ostendorff, USA TODAY Updated 1h ago

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – North Carolina is moving toward becoming the first state to compensate victims of an involuntary sterilization program that tried to filter out poor people deemed mentally or otherwise unfit to produce offspring.

The practice was declared legal by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 but tapered off in most states during World War II as word of Nazi genocide and sterilization began to spread.

North Carolina's program was unusual because it continued for so long, according to Charmaine Fuller Cooper, the executive director of the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. Most victims in the state were sterilized from 1946 to 1968.

State lawmakers held a public hearing in Raleigh this week, then voted to send the reparations bill on to the finance committee. The bill has bipartisan support.

"This is not a perfect bill," said sponsor Rep. Larry Womble, a Democrat. "But it is a bill that separates North Carolina from the rest of the world. This is a proud day."

Top states
More than 60,000 people were forced or coerced into sterilization procedures in the USA from about 1907 to 1974. Programs in about 30 states largely targeted the poor and mentally ill. Top five states for sterilizations performed:


Source: Lutz Kaelber, associate professor of sociology, University of Vermont
Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's budget has $10 million set aside to compensate living victims with $50,000 payments. The victims would have to come forward by the end of 2015. The plan is one of the few things on which the outgoing governor and Republican-controlled General Assembly appear to agree.

"Get it over with and have it done so they can enjoy it before they die," Republican Rep. Paul Stam said during this week's hearing.

More than 30 other states had similar eugenics programs, said Lutz Kaelber, a professor at the University of Vermont who has studied the practice. There were about 60,000 victims nationwide, including more than 20,000 in California, Kaelber's data show. He said he has not heard of any other state considering compensation.

Reparations are intended for the estimated 2,000 living victims in North Carolina. Womble cried as he told the committee this week that no other state is considering making reparations. Republican Rep. George Cleveland said North Carolina, like other states, has apologized and should not make reparations.

"People today pay for something that happened in the past," he said. "I don't believe it's correct."

North Carolina relies on self-reporting. So far, 132 victims have been identified, Fuller Cooper said. The reason for the self-reporting policy is to minimize harm, she said. Sending a notification letter to a woman who might have been sterilized could mean unintentionally exposing a horrible part of her life to her family, she said. A victim may authorize others to report sterilization.

Fuller Cooper said she is optimistic that lawmakers will approve the legislation during the government's short session this summer.

Ostendorff also reports for the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times.

N.C. may compensate sterilization victims