Professor's probe of sterilizations finds relevance in modern science

It's been 50 years, but one sentence in a Supreme Court decision that Julius Paul read during a class in college still makes his blood boil.

In the 1927 case, the court ruled the State of Virginia had the right to sterilize a mildly retarded woman, Carrie Buck, whose mother and a daughter born after she was raped by her foster brother also were deemed mentally deficient.

"Three generations of imbeciles are enough," wrote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., an icon of the court known for his defense of civil liberties.

The statement riled Paul and changed the course of his career.

"I thought, geez, that's an interesting logic. It was that kind of thing that caught my attention," Paul, a retired Fredonia State College political science professor, recalled during an interview at his home near campus.

He began to investigate the sterilization laws in Virginia, New York and other states, spending 20 years digging through records at hospitals, state agencies and private archives.

He found 65,000 forced sterilizations were performed in this country between 1907 and 1966. But Paul...