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MONTPELIER â The House of Representatives gave final passage Wednesday to a resolution declaring racism a public health emergency, but not without some fireworks.
The resolution, JRH 6, passed 135-8 on a roll call vote, following impassioned statements in favor of passage.
JRH 6, sponsored by Rep. Brian Cina, P-Chittenden 6-4, cites racial discrepancies in health outcomes among BIPOC Vermonters including a much higher rate of COVID-19 cases, higher rates of mental health issues, lower incomes and higher poverty rates, as reasons the Legislature should treat racism as a health emergency.
It declares âthat racism constitutes a public health emergency in Vermontâ and commits the Legislature to âthe sustained and deep work of eradicating systemic racism throughout the State, actively fighting racist practices, and participating in the creation of more just and equitable systems.â
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MONTPELIER â Ninety years to the day a bill legalizing sterilization targeting Abenaki people, French Canadian and French Indian immigrants, the poor and the mentally ill was signed into law, the Vermont House of Representatives confronted the grim history of the stateâs eugenics movement and unanimously endorsed a resolution apologizing for its actions nearly a century ago.
In the resolution, the General Assembly âsincerely apologizes and expresses its sorrow and regret to all individual Vermonters and their families and descendants who were harmed as a result of State-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices.â
Vermont House unanimously supports eugenics apology
April 1, 2021 GMT
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Legislators in the Vermont House have unanimously supported a resolution apologizing to all Vermonters and their families and descendants who were harmed by state-sanctioned eugenics policies and practices that led to sterilizations.
Under the eugenics movement, some Vermonters of mixed French Canadian and Native American heritage, as well as poor, rural white people, were placed on a state-sanctioned list of “mental defectives” and degenerates and sent to state institutions.
Some had surgery after Vermont in 1931 became one of more than two dozen states to pass a law allowing voluntary sterilizations for “human betterment.”
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