The “Nobel Prize Sperm Bank” Was Racist. It Also Helped Change the Fertility Industry

The Repository for Germinal Choice was supposed to produce super-kids from the sperm of white high achievers

Robert Klark Graham made millions with shatterproof lenses for eyeglasses and contact lenses. But he didn’t stop there.

Graham, born on this day in 1906, went on to found the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank that was supposed to produce "super-kids" from the sperm of (white) high achievers, like Nobel Prize winners. This unprecedented attempt at controlling reproduction was quickly shunned by the broader public, but it helped to change the business of sperm donation in ways that continue to raise questions.

The Repository was opened in 1979 in Escondido, California, according to Lawrence Van Gelder for The New York Times. Among Graham’s donors were three Nobel laureates. In fact, “Nobel Prize sperm bank” was the nickname that the initiative quickly gained in the press, according to David Plotz, writing in Slate. Ironic, considering that Graham himself walked away with a 1991 Ig Nobel for the repository.

After Graham tried to sell the press on his idea in 1980, Plotz writes...