ABSTRACT
In 1907, Indiana became the rst state in the United States to legalize compulsory sterilization of mentally ill and mentally retarded persons. In 1924, the Racial Integrity Act followed, banning People of Color from marrying White people. Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws prohibiting anyone who was “imbecile” or “feebleminded” from marrying. e Immigration Act of 1924 reduced immigration from abroad, based on the threat of “inferior stock” inltrating the American population. What do these historical policies have in common? ey were all greatly inuenced by the Eugenics movement of the 1900s, which used various assessment practices to identify and remove “unt” individuals from society through institutionalization, sterilization, and immigration and marriage laws. Psychologists like Henry H. Goddard argued that research on the intelligence quotient (IQ) showed that certain racial and ethnic groups possess higher rates of mental retardation and consequently were not t for society. What Goddard failed to see was that his bias toward persons whom he referred to as “morons,” or individuals with an IQ below 51, greatly inuenced his data. His research methods, and specically his administration and interpretation of the Simon-Binet Scale to assess IQ, are extremely awed by today’s standards. However, at the time, Goddard’s assessment of intelligence had signicant real-world implications and serves as a current day reminder of the importance of supervision and training in ethical and competent assessment practices (see Haller, 1963; Kevles, 1985; Zenderlan, 1998).
