Eugenics in Minnesota

Minnesota was the 17th state in the United States that enacted laws allowing eugenic practices. In Minnesota, developmentally disabled people were involuntarily committed to state guardianship and sterilized, with the majority being women, although today many of those committed to state guardianship or sterilized would not be considered disabled.

Eugenics in the United States
The practice of eugenics aims to improve the genetic quality of a population which historically has occurred through selective breeding, forced sterilization, and genocide. Recently, technologies like CRISPR and genetic screening have created new discussions about the ethicality of eugenics.

Eugenics played a significant role in the history of the United States from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Eugenic programs in the United States disproportionately targeted Latinx, Black, and Native Americans, as well as poor white people and people with disabilities. American eugenics resulted in the forced sterilization of over 60,000 people through laws passed in 30 states, including Minnesota, by the 1970s.

Background
In 1917, under pressure from Minnesota's Child Welfare Commission, 35 new laws were passed that related to children in the state, called the Children's Code. These laws gave the state the authority to involuntarily commit children who were "feebleminded", dependent, neglected, or "delinquent" to state guardianship. County probate judges were given the ability to commit any "feebleminded", "inebriate, or "insane" person without the consent of parents, guardians, or nearest kin. This policy was shaped by Dr. Arthur C. Rogers, superintendent of the Minnesota School for the Feebleminded in Faribault, who supported compulsory commitment in the state.  He also pushed for forced sterilization in Minnesota. In 1911, Rogers arranged for research to occur in Minnesota on the families of the "feebleminded".  Two fieldworkers from the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, New York came to Minnesota to study families of inmates at the Minnesota School for the Feebleminded.  The results of the study showed an "appalling amount" of hereditary "defectiveness" in Hog Hollow, a community in Minnesota.  The report, Dwellers in the Vale of Siddem, depicted mentally ill and disabled people as social menaces and described the living conditions of those in Hog Hollow as lower than that of animals. Dwellers in the Vale of Siddem advocated against the reproduction of the "feebleminded" and laid a foundation for eugenics in the state.

From 1924 to 1959, probate judges and Mildred Thomson, director of the control board's Bureau for the Feebleminded and Epileptic, used physical health, IQ scores, family relations, school or work records, home environment, and appearance to make their decisions on which children to commit. Two independent physicians were supposed to be present for a decision to be made, but this rule could be dissolved if the suspect was "obviously feebleminded".

Low economic class and atypical behavior were considered a symptoms of "feeblemindedness", which led to disproportionate commitment rates. The majority of those committed were working-class women. Those that did not speak English were also vulnerable to commitment because of English-language IQ tests. At the University of Minnesota, University President Lotus Coffman supported eugenic principles regarding racial segregation. Coffman was president of the university from 1920 until 1938. Coffman believed that racial segregation and a racial hierarchy was natural. He also believed that this "natural order" should be maintained by the control of reproduction. He believed that white, Protestant people should be allowed to reproduce, while people of color, Jewish, and Catholic people, as well as those with disabilities should have their reproduction controlled.

Rogers brought Frederick Kuhlmann, a psychologist, to the state, who would become one of Minnesota's most effective advocates for eugenics usage. In 1910, Kuhlmann, director of research at the Faribault School for the Feebleminded, pushed for IQ testing as a measure for "defectiveness". He tested the IQs of thousands of Minnesotan students. He also helped to develop special education classes in the public schools of Minnesota to segregate student populations. Kuhlmann was an advocate for statewide testing of students so that those not immediately recognizable as "feebleminded" could be better identified and managed. This work led to a higher percentage of Minnesotans being labeled as "feebleminded".

By 1924, 1,802 people were placed under state guardianship. 27 people were being committed every month. This led to state institutions being overcrowded and over capacity. The majority of these new commitments would not be regarded as having a disability today. County judges often had little training in social work were placed in charge of committing Minnesotans to state institutions. In many cases, IQ tests would be used as evidence to wrongfully send whole families to into state guardianship, with later testing proving they were not "feebleminded". Eugenics was seen as a way to reduce to overpopulation problem in state institutions and most survivors were discharged three months after their operation.

Baby Health Contest
Rogers gave lectures on the topic of eugenics at the Minnesota State Fair in 1913. The fair also hosted the Baby Health Contest, which was grounded in eugenic ideology, that aimed to show off "human fitness". At the fair, Rogers stated that prize-winning babies were not necessarily complete models of "human fitness", instead claiming that the babies might be tainted with "an ancestry with a history of defectiveness."

When assessing babies for "fitness", Rogers looked for certain characteristics, which he called stigmata, to search for "defectiveness". Stigmata included shape of the ears, the underside of the jaw, racial angles, and asymmetry. These characteristics were purposely racist. The Baby Health Contest occurred in a 20'x20' glass cage, which allowed the public to watch nurses and physicians, including Frederick Kuhlmann, examine the babies.

Rogers and others promoted the idea that a single baby did not provide much data on the hereditary information it contained. Because of this, Dight and other eugenicists endorsed "Fitter Family" contests which examined whole families for "defectiveness". "Fitter Family" contests were never held at the Minnesota State Fair.

Minnesota Eugenics Society
Charles Fremont Dight, a Minneapolis physician, is accredited as bringing the eugenics movement to Minnesota in the early 1920s. He approached this through eugenics education, limitations placed on marriages, and the segregation and sterilization of "unfit" individuals. Dight was a resident physician at the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minnesota and later took a position as professor of physiology at Hamline Medical School in St. Paul. Between 1921 and 1935, Dight wrote over 300 articles on eugenics that appeared in Minnesota newspapers as well as hosting radio talks and lectures on the subject. In his editorials, Dight often compared human reproduction to the selective breeding techniques used in agriculture. He was also an outspoken supporter of Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust, praising his efforts to "stamp out mental inferiority". In response, Hitler invited Dight to Munich.

In 1923, Dight organized the Minnesota Eugenics Society, which campaigned for a statewide eugenics law. Members of the society included doctors, surgeons, scientists, lawyers, psychiatrists, physicians, and ministers. Albert E. Jenks, founder of the University of Minnesota's anthropology department, and E. P. Lyon, the dean of its medical school, were supporters of the Minnesota Eugenics Society. The society's members were all male, and lived throughout the entire state. Dight was voted as president of the Minnesota Eugenics Society on February 2, 1927 during its first annual meeting and remained as president until his death in 1938.

Sterilization law of 1925
In 1925, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill which would sterilize the "feebleminded" and "insane", living in the states mental asylums. Dight considered people who were mentally ill, developmentally disabled, epileptic, criminals, and "sexual deviants" to be "feeble-minded". Governor Theodore Christianson signed this bill into law. This law took effect on January 8, 1926. On this day, eight women living in a mental asylum in Faribault were sterilized. Unlike many other states in the United States, Minnesota's eugenics law required the consent of the person being operated on and the consent of their spouse or nearest kin. However, when deemed incompetent—which many of the "feeblemineded" and "insane" were—the state was allowed to make this choice in the absence of a guardian. Dr. George G. Eitel, vice present of the Minnesota Eugenics Society, performed the first 150 sterilization surgeries in the state. A consultation with a psychologist, usually Kuhlmann, was a requirement for the operation. This consultation always included at least one IQ test.

Dr. David J. Vail became the director of the Minnesota Department of Welfare in 1961, and, under his leadership, the rate of sterilizations dropped. In 1975, the law was altered to provide Minnesotans with a larger protection from sterilizations. Forced sterilization is still sanctioned in the state when authorized by a court order.

American Indian boarding schools
In March of 1981, the United States Congress authorized the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to create laws requiring Native American children to attend boarding schools. As a result of these laws, the Indian Office was able to withhold clothing, rations, and other necessities from Indigenous parents and guardians who did not send their children to residential schools. Indian agents abducted Native children from their homes and placed them in Christian-run and government-run boarding schools. This practice continued until the 1970s. There were 21 American Indian boarding schools in Minnesota with students from all of the state's reservations. Schools were located in Avoca, Beaulieu, Bena, Cass Lake, Clontarf, Collegeville, Graceville, Morris, Nett Lake, Onigum, Pipestone, Ponemah, Ponsford, Red Lake, Saint Paul, St. Joseph, Tower, Walker, and White Earth. Discipline was harsh at these schools; some had cells and dungeons where students were held for days, only given bread and water. Discipline methods also included forcing students to dress as an opposite gender identity. The dormitories of these schools were overcrowded and allowed for epidemics of measles, influenza, diphtheria, sepsis, scarlet fever, typhoid, pneumonia, tuberculosis, mumps, and trachoma to occur. Students died of these illnesses as well as accidents like falls and drowning. No residential schools remain open in Minnesota today. They are now understood to have been tools for ethnic cleansing, utilizing genocidal policies to destroy Native American communities and culture. Throughout the US, thousands of Native American children died due to disease, malnutrition, and hunger caused by the residential schools.

Sterilization of Native American women
Between 1973 and 1976, the United States Indian Health Service (IHS) sterilized between 25% and 50% of Native American women. These sterilizations occurred across the US, including in Minnesota. The IHS utilized dishonest consent forms, threats, as well as other methods of misinformation to coerce the women to "give consent" for the procedures, however some were sterilized without their knowledge, with the surgery occurring during unrelated operations. Many women were told to sign consent documents while under the effects of anesthesia or in labor and, later, could not remember signing the forms. In Minnesota, a 28-year-old woman was sterilized in an IHS facility who had signed a consent form while in labor, thinking she was signing for a painkiller.

Donald Trump and racehorse theory
On September 18, 2020, President Donald Trump performed a campaign speech in Bemidji, Minnesota. During his closing remarks, Trump stated that the mostly-white audience had "good genes". He then included a statement about racehorse theory, stating again that Minnesota had "good genes". Initially about horses, racehorse theory has historically been used to justify the selective breeding of humans. It is the idea that certain people have superior genes and genetic histories to others. This comment, along with others Trump had made in the past about immigrants, was met with scrutiny and criticism, with some comparing Trump's remarks with Nazism during World War II and the history eugenics has in the United States. Interviewer Hugh Hewitt pressed Trump about the similarity of the phrase with the statements made by Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf, to which Trump replied he "[knew] nothing about Hitler." Trump had previously been known to comment on the "superiority" of his genes.

Impact
At least 2,204 Minnesota residents were sterilized because of the 1925 law. 77 percent of those sterilized were women. The true number of those sterilized is unknown because Minnesota did not have an agency that tracked sterilizations, unlike other states. The impact of sterilization was not as substantial as Dight had hoped it would be. Dight had hoped to sterilize nearly 10 percent of the state's population.

Eugenics remained highly approved by Minnesotans for decades after its institution in the state. Dr. Charles Mayo and Charles Lindbergh, respected figures of Minnesota, were supporters of sterilizing the "unfit".

Dight Avenue in Minneapolis was named for Charles Fremont Dight until March of 2022, when it was renamed to Cheatham Avenue, in honor of John Cheatham, Minneapolis's first Black fire captain. After the murder of George Floyd, as a program to divest from white supremacy, the Minnesota Disability Justice Network and City Council Member Andrew Johnson worked to rename the street. On March 17, 2022, the avenue was renamed to Cheatham Avenue.

In his will, Dight left his estate to the University of Minnesota to found the Dight Institute for the promotion of Human Genetics, later named the Institute for Human Genetics, which remained active until the 1960s. The Minnesota School for the Feebleminded closed in 1998 and the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Faribault now operates on its grounds.

Many Native American communities still face the effects of intergenerational trauma caused by the residential schools. The University of Minnesota Morris now operates on the campus of the Morris Industrial School for Indians, an American Indian boarding school operated by the Sisters of Mercy in Morris. Native American students receive free tuition to the university due to a federal mandate. As of 2018, over 20% of the students at the Morris campus identify as Native American. In other University of Minnesota campuses, only 2.5% of the student population identify as Native.