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history
From people last to People First

A documentary shows how neglect and abuse in an Oregon As a result, lawmakers asked the federal
institution led to changes to support and a self-advocacy government for greater flexibility over how
they spent Medicaid. Oregon was the first
movement that went global, says Susanna Shapland state to apply for a waiver permitting them

to redeploy the funds they received from
institutional care to supporting learning-
he Fairview Training Center, which disabled people to live in the community
opened in 1908, aimed to take the instead, allowing them more choice over
Tlearning-disabled citizens of Oregon how and where they lived.
out of the asylums where they were then In the 1980s, a lobby group that had
housed and into a specialist institution. been fighting for the rights of learning-
By the time it finally closed in 2000, disabled adults and children since its
roughly 10,000 people had passed through establishment in the 1950s, now known
its doors. They stayed for anything from a as the Arc of Oregon, filed a number of
few years to their whole lives. At work: a still from In the Shadow of Fairview lawsuits regarding Fairview, including one
Residents were segregated by age, sex against the Department of Justice.
and ability, and placed in cottages on inappropriately high dosages of sedatives or When representatives from the
more than 700 acres of farmland. The psychotropic medications” (Gelser, 2010). Department of Justice went to Fairview to
men and boys were put to work on the This was corroborated by survivors, investigate, they were shocked to find
land and the women and girls did the who recalled punishments such as being “conditions that were very abusive”, and
laundry and mended clothes. hit with shoes, scalded with hot water decertified it, withdrawing millions of
As it was a state institution, the and being caged and medicated dollars in funding. The courts ordered
government paid for residents’ care, with into submission. Fairview to implement a rigorous plan
families contributing what they could. From its early days, Fairview was to improve conditions, which included
Some residents were placed there by dogged by accusations of abuse and hiring hundreds of staff and getting rid
families who could not afford to care for neglect. Stories in the local press claimed of restraints.
them but, in the 1930s, press reports that the institution was overcrowded and However, despite significant
suggested forced commitment occurred, understaffed, sometimes having only one improvements, problems persisted and
where children of poor immigrant families worker to care for 85 residents. Fairview finally closed in 2000.
were targeted by social workers who Insanitary conditions led to outbreaks Today, many of its former residents are
equated poverty with likely “feeble- of dysentery and meningitis. A flurry of self-advocates, intent on sharing their
mindedness”. news stories in the 1970s reported experiences to ensure the story of Fairview
This desire to purge society of supposed accidents, injuries and rapes of residents is not repeated, and Oregon is one of the
“undesirables” was symptomatic of the by both fellow residents and their few states with no long-stay institutions for
burgeoning eugenics movement. In 1923, supposed caregivers. learning-disabled residents. n
Oregon – like many US states around this One academic investigation found that, l Thanks to Philip Ferguson who was
time – passed a eugenics bill that allowed between 1963 and 1987, inmates at involved in the video
for the compulsory sterilisation of various Fairview were more than twice as likely to
categories of people, which included the die from unnatural causes as people in Videos
“feeble-minded”. the surrounding Marion County who were In the Shadow of Fairview. 2020. https://
As a result, residents of state hospitals not institutionalised. tinyurl.com/yzlg6lmc
and prisons were reviewed by staff who Change came thanks to advocacy Breaking Barriers to Inclusion. 2018. A visit to
Fairview before it was torn down. https://
would then recommend candidates for groups and lawsuits. The 1970s saw www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xwaQY--m74.
sterilisation to the State Eugenics Board. Fairview resident Linda Gheer co-found Voices from Fairview. 2004. Accounts from
self-advocacy group People First. They Fairview residents. https://www.youtube.com/
Sterilisation needed before release campaigned to help people leave watch?v=GP85pIcBQQ8
For decades, inmates had to be sterilised institutions such as Fairview. In Our Care. 1959. Public education film about
before they were released, a practice that Oregon was the first state to have a Fairview. https://vimeo.com/365508.
continued into the 1970s. The law itself People First group and, by 1984, it was an
was only repealed in 1983 and, in 2002, international movement. Arguing that Bibliography
governor John Kitzhaber issued a formal they were people first and labels second, Gelser S (2010) Erasing Fairview’s horrors.
apology for these human rights violations. those in the group did much to change 10 January. https://tinyurl.com/yc323f2f
By that time, more than 2,600 forced public opinion. Oregon Self Advocacy Coalition. Our history.
http://www.askosac.org/history/.
sterilisations had taken place at Fairview. Ferguson PM, Ferguson DL, Brodsky MM
Kitzhaber also acknowledged that, until Mothers from Hell (2008) “Away from the Public Gaze”. A History
the mid-1980s, staff “commonly used Around the same time, a group known as of the Fairview Training Center and the
inhumane devices to restrain or control Mothers from Hell, formed of parents of Institutionalization of People with
patients, including leather cuffs and children with learning disabilities, lobbied Developmental Disabilities in Oregon. Western
helmets and straitjackets and the state for better resources and support. Oregon University. https://tinyurl.com/yacxygdx

30 Vol 34 No 3 | Spring 2021 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk