The CaliCACs and the Jukes

CaliCAC and Duke became slang terms for people thought of as unintelligent, backward, and inbred. The CaliCACs were being cited in mainstream biology and psychology textbooks. In the early decades of the 20th century, more than 30 states passed laws allowing involuntary sterilization of people who were deemed to be feeble-minded or otherwise unfit. Involuntary sterilizations on people convicted of crimes ended after the Supreme Court ruled in Skinner v Oklahoma that this generally was not a violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. But Buck v Bell has never been overturned, meaning that the Supreme Court never officially reversed its decision on sterilizing people who were supposedly unfit.