The Mallory Model

When I first found the details of this case, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole that is this lawsuit and the dangerous precedent it set, with the lack of due process and the ethical conflicts of interest that permeated this decision. 

But a case like Buck doesn’t begin in the Supreme Court. Buck is built from legal precedent, from increasing trends of belief in eugenics through the 1920’s, and quite impactfully, from one Doctor Albert Priddy’s push towards sterilization in Virginia. 

In order to understand Buck v. Bell, one must first understand Mallory v. Priddy. 

Doctor Albert Priddy was the first superintendent of the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded, the institution in which both Carrie Buck and her biological mother were housed. Priddy was keenly aware of the costs of institutional care, but he embraced both the economic and broader treatment of what he called “mental defectiveness” or “feeblemindedness,” urging legislature to “give thought to the practicality of a law permitting the sterilization of inmates of our eleemosynary and penal institutions…”

As the Virginia Colony grew, so too did Priddy’s push for sterilization to be legalized. In his 1915 reports to the Governor, Priddy claimed that feeblemindedness was a “burden too heavy” for the rest of society to bear. He placed the most emphasis on women, especially those of childbearing age. 

It should be noted that, at the time, feeblemindedness was considered an actual medical diagnosis—a state of having the mind of a child. However, it is obvious now that it was a useless, catch-all term with no real clinical meaning. Feeblemindedness could mean anything from poverty to a learning disability to—in Carrie Buck’s case—claimed promiscuity, with no specific, definitive terms. 

While both Mallory v. Priddy’s basis and information from its deposition are not directly referenced in Buck, it does paint an image of the Colony’s first superintendent, revealing him as obsessive, manipulative, and unafraid to leverage his position in order to maintain power over his patients. 

The 1916 Mallory suits surrounded George Mallory, who worked away from home to support his wife and eight children. While he was at work, plain-clothes police arrested his wife, Willie Mallory, and two of his daughters, Jessie and Nannie Mallory, for “conducting a disorderly house.” The court dictated that the three women be committed to the Colony and involuntarily sterilized. Priddy notably treated them as prostitutes, despite George Mallory’s, their boarders’, and Willie Mallory’s employer’s protests. The Mallory women were later released, and though their committing was deemed illegal by the court, Priddy was not held liable for their sterilization. 

Priddy’s influence undoubtedly drove more support towards the eventual passing of the Virginia Sterilization Act in July 1924. However, the Mallory suits did more than simply lead up to state law. 

The lawsuits established the power Priddy held, both in the push for legislature and over his patients, as well as his lack of regard for weaponizing claims of sexual misconduct. The case itself also showed just how widespread eugenics was at the time. From the court to the Colony to the police that arrested the Mallory women for no real reason, pre-World War II eugenics beliefs thrived in America. Most distinctly, the Mallory suits revealed which people would be more targeted by eugenics laws—young women, those in poverty, and those considered “promiscuous.” 

It is no coincidence that Carrie Buck, the “test case” for the 1924 Virginia Sterilization Act, was all three.