Eugenics, the set of practices and beliefs that aimed to improve and protect certain groups by suppressing others, swept across the United States as a movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Eugenics theory and laws informed numerous policy areas, such as immigration (gatekeeping who should be allowed into the United States and who should not) and procreation (regulating who should be allowed to repopulate and who should not). Immigrant groups, people of color, and individuals with disabilities and mental health issues were all targeted for suppression. Such was the case in Buck v. Bell. In 1924, the superintendent of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded ordered that eighteen-year-old Carrie Buck be sterilized. The claim was that Buck had the mental age of nine years old and represented a genetic threat to society. Buck, who was raped by her adoptive mother’s nephew and gave birth, was deemed “promiscuous” and feeble-minded,” as was Carrie Buck’s biological mother, who suffered from a similar condition, had a record of sex work, and had given birth to three children, including Carrie. The State of Virginia determined that it was in the best interest of the state that both mother and daughter be sterilized. The Supreme Court upheld the decision and ruled that because of their disability, sterilizing did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“. . . nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”). The case paved the way for furthering eugenics studies and compulsory sterilization procedures and has yet to be repealed formally by the Supreme Court.