It Also Happened Here: AECY’s Student Symposium
This entry, by Tara*, discusses the May 1st Symposium hosted by the AECY, summarizing its events, scholarship, and reflections on anti-eugenic work.
*Tara Bhat (she/her) is a junior at Yale University, who studies Political Science.
On May 1st, 2023, the Anti-Eugenics Collective at Yale (AECY) hosted “It Also Happened Here,” a symposium encompassing the vast history of Yale’s involvement in eugenics. The symposium also served as a space where students, educators, and community members could reflect on and share their experiences researching eugenics and using this research to inform their work.
First, the speakers at the symposium situated a history of eugenics at Yale, showing images of the headquarters of the American Eugenics Society, which was extremely close to campus at 185 Church Street. Audience members at the symposium learned about the prominent Yale professors of history who were deeply entangled in the study of eugenics, including economist Irving Fisher and Madison Grant. Scans from the archives were shown of programs and letters from the American Eugenics Society, clearly outlining their goals to popularize eugenics by building eugenic clubs and lectures, popularizing fitter family contests, and using eugenic works as textbooks in universities. One of the more jarring archival findings shared at the symposium was a copy of the 1936 Eugenic Survey of CT, which was commissioned by CT Governor Wilbur Cross. The survey aimed to count the number of “individual defective or handicapped persons” in the state, and suggested sterilization and euthanasia as the remedy. These eugenicists went further than just suggestions, however, and the presenters of the symposium showed a record of the number of people in CT who were sterilized in 1937, a number that should have been no more than zero.
Some of the students who are part of the AECY have been studying the archives for the past two years, allowing these experiences to inform their daily lives as well as their theses, and this symposium was the chance for them to showcase their work. Dora Guo (‘23), Sarah Laufenberg (‘23), and Emme Magliato (‘23) each presented their senior essays. Their theses subjects spanned from discussions about Yale as a laboratory for eugenic knowledge production, where New Haven and its surrounding areas acted as the study material, to how Arnold Gesell, “father of child development,” developed a study of child development at Yale that was heavily influenced by his eugenic views.
Group of students, educators, collaborators, and community members gathered on May 1st to hear about the senior thesis research of Emme Magliato, Sarah Laufenberg, and Dora Guo.
Next, the symposium turned to the broader community, showcasing the AECY’s work with K-12 educators and students, who have been working on building eugenics-informed curricula for their classrooms. Bethsaida Nieves, an assistant professor at UConn El Instituto, who studies eugenics and colonialism in education in Puerto Rico, helped facilitate the working group. The working group also consisted of K-12 educators Rayna Walters, Christina Griffin, and Michelle Maitland, and students Tenzin Mary Youdon, Elsa Holahan, and Tenzin Dhondup, who all worked to bring eugenics education to classrooms both in elementary and high schools.
The last part of the symposium brought together all of the reflections upon the scholarship and research discussed into a listening panel with Marcos Ramos, an assistant professor in the history of medicine and at the department of psychiatry at Yale, Meredith Gavrin, co-founder and vice president of New Haven Academy, and James Jeter, the co-founder and program director of the Full Citizens Coalition. They each shared their thoughts on the presentations of the symposium and their ideas on how we can bring this work forward, providing a perfect conclusion to the symposium.
From left to right: Marcos Ramos, Meredith Gavrin, and James Jeter participate in our listening panel.
View the recording of the symposium here.
If you missed the symposium, but want to stay up to date with the work of the AECY, continue checking out this blog and the rest of the pages of our website, which are being updated regularly.