From an editorial Sunday in the Fayetteville Observer: <\/p>\n
The effort to compensate victims of this states eugenics program has hit wall after wall, even after a state law passed last summer offered reparations. <\/p>\n
The program sterilized about 7,600 people considered feeble-minded. It began in 1929 and ended in 1974. <\/p>\n
While lawmakers moved to compensate the victims and set aside a $10 million fund for those who qualified, only 213 of the 731 claims filed have been approved. <\/p>\n
And now theres a new glitch. Many of the forced sterilizations were ordered by county social-services departments, not by the state Eugenics Board. If it was a county decision, state officials say, then victims dont qualify for state compensation. <\/p>\n
Elizabeth Haddix, a lawyer with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, is representing 40 victims, 30 of them sterilized by counties. She advocates including all forced-sterilization victims in the compensation program. It was a state statute, she says, and Im sure these DSS workers just felt like they were following state policy. <\/p>\n
We hope the state Industrial Commission, which rules on the claims, will include all the victims, no matter who issued the sterilization orders. <\/p>\n
The victims are aging, and many have already died. Justice needs to come soon. <\/p>\n
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