Oklahoma
Number of victims
In
total, 556 individuals were sterilized in Oklahoma, of whom about 78% were
female. Almost half of them were considered “mentally deficient,” and the rest
were mentally ill. Oklahoma ranks 20th among states in the United
States in terms of the total number of sterilizations. These numbers do not
include Native American women, who might have been sterilized in the state at
least until the 1970s (see below).
Period during which sterilizations occurred
The
sterilizations began in the mid-1930s. The last sterilizations under state law were
performed in 1955 (Paul, p. 453).
Temporal pattern of sterilizations and rate of sterilization
After
the passage of sterilization legislation in 1931, sterilizations sharply
increased after 1935. After the Skinner
case in 1942 (see below), there were only a few sterilizations. For the period
of 1935 to 1942 about 65 sterilizations occurred per year (see Paul, p. 451).
The rate of sterilization per 100,000 residents per year during this period was
about 3.
Passage of law(s)
Legislation regarding sterilization in Okalahoma was first passed on April 22, 1931 (Landman, p. 93). Oklahoma was the 30th state in the United States to pass such a law. The law was expanded in scope in 1933 and in 1935.
Groups identified in the law
Sterilization
legislation in Oklahoma allowed for the sterilization of inmates of asylums,
prisons, and other state institutions who suffered from “cacogenic recurrent
insanity, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness, or epilepsy” (Paul, p. 450). It
also covered persons “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity” (Noarse, p. 43).
In 1933, the law was expanded to cover patients “likely to be a public or
partial public charge” and “habitual criminal[s],” defined as “any person
convicted of a felony three times” (Noarse, p. 44). In 1935, the state passed
another law, the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, which held that those
found to be habitual criminals with two prior convictions could be forcefully
sterilized (Nourse, p. 84).
Process of the law
The
superintendent of a state institution could recommend an inmate for
sterilization. The superintendent then needed to seek affirmation of this
recommendation from the board of affairs.
At this meeting, the candidate for sterilization was permitted to
contest his or her recommendation. If,
at this meeting, the board did affirm the recommendation, the individual could
appeal this decision at the district court level and, eventually, at the level
of the State Supreme Court. The patient’s consent was needed in order to
complete the sterilization operation (Landman, p. 93). However, a patient
deemed a candidate for sterilization by the board of affairs and subsequent
court decisions was not permitted to leave the state institution without
undergoing said procedure (Nourse, p. 17).
For
those affected by the Criminal Sterilization law, writes Victoria Nourse in her
book In Reckless Hands, “the attorney
general…would be in charge of petitioning for sterilization, which would
require a jury trial and could be immediately appealed to the state supreme
court, bypassing intermediate courts. Gone were references to public charges
and social inadequacy [as in the 1931/1933 laws]; if the jury found that the
defendant was a habitual criminal and that sterilization would not harm his
health, then the district court was required to issue a sterilization order” (Nourse,
p. 84).
Legal Issues
As
discussed by Victoria Nourse’s book (on which the following relies), the year
1942 brought the landmark decision of Skinner v. The State of Oklahoma, in
which the United States Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilization was not a
justifiable sentence for a crime.
Because the compulsory criminal sterilization law in Oklahoma excluded
white-collar crimes, the Supreme Court ruled that the punishment was altogether
unjustifiable for any sort of crime. This was very significant in that
sterilizations in the state decreased almost entirely after the ruling. It is important to note that the reason why
sterilizations in Oklahoma decreased after the ruling was due largely in part
to the fact that the vast majority of the sterilizations in Oklahoma were
punitive. Therefore, the Supreme Court
decision had outlawed the very kind of sterilization which was most prominent
in the state. The ruling also had little
effect on sterilizations nationwide. A
great deal of sterilizations of the so-called “feeble-minded” occurred in the
years after the ruling. Nourse posits that the main importance of this ruling
lies in its triumph over the political and social climate of the time. Eugenics was a popular ideology in the nation
at the time. A propaganda-induced moral panic had swept over the nation,
causing much of the populous to believe that the human race was in grave danger
of being overtaken by feeble-minded and habitual criminal “idiots.” Thus, it
was neither easy nor particularly safe to stand as a voice of opposition
against such a movement. That Skinner
and his fellow inmates at McAlester Prison not only stood firm in their
beliefs, but stayed the course all the way to the Supreme Court, was a very
significant and often overlooked aspect of the fight against eugenics.
Precipitating factors and processes
The
Great Depression created a new sense of urgency about public health. The ideas surrounding the perpetuation of
undesirable heredity were becoming less of a futuristic concern and more of a
present worry (Nourse, p. 23). Additionally, the general public became much
more concerned with criminality. The
growing presence of gangsters in the media fueled fears that society was
producing habitually criminal individuals (Nourse, p. 26). Directors of asylums
and prisons in Oklahoma claimed that their institutions were full to the point
of overflowing. They begged
then-governor Alfalfa Bill Murray to remove some of the burden that was being
placed on these institutions.
Sterilization offered a seemingly viable solution, as those
feeble-minded or otherwise desirable individuals could safely be released into
society after undergoing such a procedure (Nourse, p. 45).
Groups targeted and victimized
The
most widely targeted group in Oklahoma were criminals, particularly habitual
offenders. Murray was a firm believer in
the genetics of criminality, and argued that these individuals were a burden on
society that could be prevented by sterilization (Nourse, p. 20). Women were
also targeted more often than their male counterparts.
Native
American Women
may
also have been the target of sterilizations, at least during the 1970s. In her
book American Eugenics, Nancy Ordover
reports that at the Indian Health Services hospital in Claremore, sterilization
practices “translated into one woman sterilized for every four babies born at
the facility” (p. 173) and quotes one investigator who, relying on native sources,
states that there may well be “one tribe in Oklahoma where there are no
full-blooded women who have not been sterilized” (p. 262 n. 58). Concern over
the severity of such alleged practices has led some Native Americans to
consider them genocidal.
Major proponents
(Photo origin: OKGenWeb Project, available at http://www.okgenweb.org/~okalfalf/graphics/168px-William_Murray.jpg)
William Henry Davis “Alfalfa Bill”
Murray (1869-1956) was the governor of Oklahoma during the
emergence of the eugenics movement in the state. Murray was born in Texas and attended several
schools throughout the state. After
graduating from the College Hill Institute, Murray passed the bar exam and
began to practice law in Fort Worth.
Eventually, Murray moved his practice to Oklahoma. In 1907, Murray became the first Speaker of
the Oklahoma House of Representatives. In 1912, Murray was elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives. In 1930,
Murray was elected governor of Oklahoma. Gradually, Murray became a strong
proponent of the eugenics movement. He
was instrumental in the passage of legislation regarding sterilization (Noarse,
pp. 20-22).
Another
proponent of eugenics, and influential in bringing about the 1933 and 1935
laws, was Louis Henry Ritzhaupt, a physician, state senator, and president of
the American Poultry Association (Noarse, pp. 44, 84-85).
“Feeder institutions” and institutions where sterilization were performed
(Photo origin: Oklahoma Department of Corrections, available at http://www.doc.state.ok.us/photo/facilities/OSP.JPG)
Then
referred to as the “McAlester State Prison,” this institution is presently
known as the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The institution is located in
McAlester, Oklahoma, and was one of the state’s primary locations for holding
those found to be habitually criminal. Skinner was an inmate at McAlester.
It is very difficult to determine where most of the sterilizations actually took place, or the feeder institutions that supply the groups of victims (mentally ill or “deficient”). An early commentary on the 1931 law provides excerpts from it, which include express references to the Hospital for the Insane at Norman (Central State Hospital, later Griffin Memorial Hospital), the Hospital at [Fort] Supply (later Northwest Center for Behavioral Health at Fort Supply), the Hospital for the Insane at Vinita (later Easter State Hospital), and the Institute for Feeble Minded at Enid (later Enid State School, Northern Oklahoma Resource Center) (Brooks, p. 52).
Opposition
As
in many states, the Catholic Church was a strong oppositional force against the
eugenics movement (Nourse, p. 21). Additionally, in 1936, inmates at the
McAlester State Prison rioted against the law passed requiring forceful
sterilization of criminals. A “brain
trust” of prisoners formed in opposition to the laws. These men educated
themselves about the sciences of eugenics, preparing to fight the law in every
manner possible (Nourse, p. 49). Their leader,
Jack Skinner, became famous as the first test case for the third sterilization
law. His oppositions to the law led him
to district, state, and eventually the United States Supreme Court (Nourse, p.
92).
Bibliography
Brooks,
Frank G. 1932. “The Oklahoma Sterilization Law and Its Application.” Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science 12: 52-54.
Available at <http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oas/oas_pdf/v12/p52_54.pdf>.
Landman, J. H. 1932. Human Sterilization: The History of the Sexual Sterilization Movement.
New York: MacMillan.
Noarse, Victoria. 2008. In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American
Eugenics. New York: Norton.
Ordover, Nancy. 2003. American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Paul, Julius. 1965. “‘Three Generations of Imbeciles
Are Enough’: State Eugenic Sterilization Laws in American Thought and
Practice.” Unpublished manuscript. Washington, D.C.: Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research.