Vermont Senate joins House in eugenics apology

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont Senate has joined the House in passing a resolution apologizing to Vermonters and their families who were harmed by state-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices that led to sterilizations.

Some Vermonters of mixed French Canadian and Native American heritage, as well as poor, rural white people, were placed on a state-sanctioned list of “mental defectives” and “degenerates” and sent to state institutions.

Some had surgery after Vermont in 1931 became one of more than two dozen states to pass a law allowing voluntary sterilizations for “human betterment.”