Chantell LaPan has been looking for information about her grandparents for most of her life.
The search started in middle school, when she was given an assignment to make a family tree going back three generations. She couldn't. She looked for birth certificates and census records, read through old newspapers and visited town offices — anything that could shed light on her family’s history.
Today, LaPan is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she does qualitative research on tourism. But her roots are in Vermont — her father grew up poor in Swanton, the second youngest of 22 children and the first to graduate from high school. The earliest records from his parents are from 1920, when they married as teenagers. Before that, there’s nothing.
Last winter, LaPan finally had a breakthrough. She found a reference to her family in a document uploaded to Middlebury College’s website. It was nearly a century old. It was painful to read.
“It had a lot of really disturbing things on the cover page about ‘defects’ of this particular family, the Phillips,” she said.
This was her family. Later, she found the names of her grandparents and several aunts listed among the files.
“What I was reading was a representation of all of the oral history that had been passed down through my family,” she said.
The document was an old case study from a research program run out of the University of Vermont called the Eugenics Survey of Vermont. The survey gathered genealogical information on poor Vermonters starting in the 1920s.
Researchers assembled “pedigrees” on more than 60 families, comprising thousands of people, looking to prove what they called “degeneracy” could be inherited. Its purpose was to promote the false theory of eugenics — the racist belief that society could be improved through selective breeding.
The project wasn’t state-funded, but it relied on the cooperation and support from state institutions. And its goals, to prevent certain people from having children, made their way to public policy, through the practices of separation and sterilization.
This was really difficult for me to absorb, to understand how a state that my family had been in for many generations, hundreds of years, could hate them so much.Chantell LaPan, assistant professor at UNC Greensboro
Vermont’s eugenics survey wasn’t something LaPan, or anyone in her immediate family, had heard of.
“This was really difficult for me to absorb, to understand how a state that my family had been in for many generations, hundreds of years, could hate them so much,” she said.
This history is what prompted the creation of a state office called the Vermont Truth and Reconciliation Commission two years ago, in the months following lawmakers' apology for the state’s role in the eugenics movement.
But the commission’s mandate extends far beyond eugenics: The office is tasked with creating a public record of discrimination perpetuated by state laws and policies and compiling recommendations for repairing harm and preventing ongoing discrimination by 2027.
The commission is preparing to gather public testimony as soon as next month. But their mandate, set forth by the Legislature, has made their work unwieldy — and raised concerns the office won’t be able to reach communities most hurt by eugenics practices in Vermont. Others worry the commission will mischaracterize those who were harmed by eugenics, because of how the law was written.
Not without precedent
Several states and more than 40 countries have created a version of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate human right abuses perpetrated by their governments. Truth commissions typically gather public testimony, create authoritative records on historic violence and compile recommendations for repairing harm. Often, commissions are stood up to expose atrocities after war and genocide, but not always.
In Maine, a truth commission documented the disproportionate removal of Wabanaki children from their families under the state’s child welfare system. In Maryland, a commission researched racial terror lynchings and is due to present their final report next year.
In Canada, a country-wide commission gathered testimonies from thousands of people impacted by the Indian Residential School system — government-sponsored, church-run boarding schools that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families and were plagued by widespread abuse.
Vermont’s charge is slightly different. There is no defined time period or specific human rights crimes or injustices the commission is focused on.
Instead, the law requires the commission examine systemic discrimination experienced by specific groups, including people who “identify as Native American or Indigenous," people with disabilities and their families, Franco-Americans, Black Vermonters and other people of color, and other communities up to “the commissioners’ discretion.”
Casting such a wide net is unique among past truth and reconciliation commissions.
“I’m not sure it would work,” said Ronald Niezen, a legal anthropologist at the University of San Diego who studies transitional and restorative justice. “I’m not sure that having it diluted to that extent is going to be particularly helpful,” he added.
Other scholars are less skeptical of the commission’s large scope. “It’s not as wide as to make it unworkable,” said Eduardo González, a sociologist based in Lima who has worked for the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the International Center for Transitional Justice.
So far, the commission has embraced this wide-ranging vision. During a series of public meetings over the past year, commissioners said investigating everything from a traffic stop of a Hasidic Jewish family in Fairlee, to restraint and seclusion practices in public schools, and the practice of slavery in early Vermont, would fall within their work.
“We're going to continue to use our intentionality, open the space for everybody to speak and everybody to tell their truths, as much as we can,” Mia Schultz, one of the commissioners, said earlier this month.
At the same time, she acknowledged the daunting task ahead, “given the scope — the seemingly impossible scope — we’ve been given,” she said.
Schultz, the president of the Rutland Area Branch of the NAACP, was appointed to lead the state office in March of 2023, along with Melody Walker Mackin, citizen of the state-recognized Elnu Abenaki Band and former chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, and Patrick Standen, a philosophy professor at St. Michael’s College and expert in the history of disability.
They had a rough start to their tenure. There was a death threat from a white supremacist group. For weeks, they couldn’t do much work — their state-issued computers hadn’t arrived. Then, a few months in, one of the leaders — Patrick Standen — resigned. More recently, so did their lead researcher.
The job has also come with an emotional strain. “The people involved in this work are often dealing with their own personal experiences and trauma while trying to address these larger historical stories,” Schultz wrote in a statement.
Unlike a lot of other truth commissions in the U.S., this commission’s work is funded by the state. In the past year, they’ve spent almost $800,000, mostly to pay salaries and retirement for a staff of six, along with thousands of dollars in training and legal fees. They have a budget of $1.1 million for this fiscal year.
The ‘springboard’ for the commission
The impetus for the commission came from Vermont lawmakers. Initially, their focus was on eugenics.
“A grotesque moment in Vermont history,” said John Killacky, a former Democratic state representative for South Burlington and lead sponsor of the apology.
“We thought it was a way to really begin to redress some of the issues with the eugenics movement,” he said.
The ideology made its way into state policy through the practice of segregating thousands of children and adults at institutions like the Brandon Training School, the Vermont Industrial School in Vergennes (also called the Weeks School), the Riverside Reformatory for Women in Rutland and the Vermont State Hospital at Waterbury.
In 1931, lawmakers passed legislation promoting “voluntary” sterilization, “to prevent procreation of idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded or insane persons,” following similar laws on the books in over 20 states at the time. More than 250 people were sterilized in Vermont “for eugenical reasons,” according to state certificates.
Ultimately, present-day lawmakers opted to give the commission a broader scope beyond the eugenics movement, “so that we look at the systemic harm of any statewide policies,” Killacky said.
“We didn't want to just create a verbal limit by saying ‘eugenics survey,’” added Tom Stevens, a Democratic state representative from Waterbury and one of the lead sponsors of the legislation creating the commission.
“It had to address each of the groups that we apologized to,” he added.
People who were considered authority figures were able to look [at the files], but probably a lot of the people at the time didn’t even know about their family being in some big file somewhere.Nancy Gallagher, independent historian
While the law named these specific identity groups that the commission should focus on, that’s not how scholars say eugenics worked in Vermont.
“It’s really based on socioeconomic class,” Mercedes de Guardiola, a communications consultant who has written extensively about the history of eugenics in the state, said at a talk at the University of Vermont this month. “It’s not really targeting people just for one reason.”
In Vermont, eugenicists often singled out large, poor families, with children who struggled in school.
“People who did not match this old-stock mold,” de Guardiola said.
‘Nobody’s going to know’
Scholars say many of the descendants of people impacted by eugenics policies and practices in Vermont are not aware of how their families fit into this history.
Nancy Gallagher, a former science teacher and independent historian — who has spent decades documenting the history of eugenics in Vermont — said people might not have known about their inclusion in the eugenics survey, even when it was conducted.
“People who were considered authority figures were able to look [at the files], but probably a lot of the people at the time didn’t even know about their family being in some big file somewhere,” she said.
That was the case for Chantell LaPan, the researcher from North Carolina. For her, discovering her family in the state’s eugenics records has been a mixed blessing.
“For a few days, I really kind of wished I hadn't found it,” she said.
That soon changed. She said the eugenics survey files she found at the state archives provided information about her family she would have otherwise never known.
Field workers had interviewed her great-grandmother, documenting what she looked like and how she dressed. They wrote down names and details of family members that weren’t recorded anywhere else.
"It's a treasure in some ways, but it's a painful treasure," she said. “This is part of the story of where we come from.”
When LaPan first heard about the commission, she thought it would play a role in letting other families know this information exists, while providing resources and support.
“People deserve to know,” she said. “You can say that there's 60-something families, but unless you say who was in them, nobody's going to know it was their family.”
But that’s not what the commission is doing. They’re not reaching out to specific families or communities that appear in state records— that’s outside the scope both set by the law designing the commission and the mission they’ve adopted themselves.
People deserve to know. You can say that there's 60-something families, but unless you say who was in them, nobody's going to know it was their family.Chantell LaPan, UNC Greensboro
Schultz acknowledged that many people impacted by eugenics practices in Vermont might not know enough about their family’s history to participate in the commission’s work.
“And that’s the tragedy,” she said.
The commission is offering a workshop at the state archives next month for people to research their family’s history, and they plan to offer similar information sessions in the future.
“I don’t know how to do anything but offer up services,” Schultz said. "We make a safe space for them to be able to do their own research.”
To LaPan, that approach is a missed opportunity for the state to document what happened to families like hers, and help people process the legacy of eugenics.
“That healing can’t happen unless we confront it,” she said.
Caught off guard
There are certain groups who are well aware of the commission, and how it’s supposed to address the history of eugenics in Vermont.
Early this year, Suzie O’Bomsawin reached out to the state office to talk about how Odanak First Nation might assist the commission in its work, which includes examining discrimination experienced by Indigenous peoples. She’s the assistant general director of the Abenaki Council of Odanak and participated in several meetings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
When she signed on to a video call to meet with the commissioners, she was surprised.
The first person on her screen was Mackin. She’s a citizen of one of Vermont’s state-recognized tribes that the Abenaki First Nations of Odanak and Wôlinak say are committing identity fraud. State-recognized tribes deny this allegation.
“For me, it was already part of the harm process,” O’Bomsawin said.
That’s because for her, the state recognition process — when the Legislature recognized four groups as Abenaki tribes in 2011 and 2012 — has been the biggest harm perpetuated by the state of Vermont against her nation, without question.
Mackin advocated for state recognition as a member of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs. She has a long history of involvement in those groups.
“I grew up in Missisquoi and my family are citizens of Missisquoi,” Mackin said, referring to the state-recognized Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi during a phone interview earlier this year. “I stand by them, always.”
That allegiance with state-recognized tribes is what made O’Bomsawin uncomfortable — she felt like she was being forced to confront an aggressor.
“It's like, if the truth and reconciliation commission that happened in Canada — if there were priests in front of the people giving testimonies, it would have been impossible,” she said, referring to former students of residential schools and their families. “This is kind of the same setting.”
O’Bomsawin said at some point during her meeting, someone handed Mackin her baby. That raised another concern about the confidentiality of the conversation — she didn’t know who else might be in the room, listening.
It's like, if the truth and reconciliation commission that happened in Canada — if there were priests in front of the people giving testimonies.Suzie O’Bomsawin, assistant general director of the Abenaki Council of Odanak
Vermont Public reached out to the commission to ask about Mackin’s conduct. Schultz responded and said, “We take these concerns very seriously because keeping things confidential and making sure everyone feels safe is a top priority for us.”
The meeting left O’Bomsawin shaken. “I was struggling to just speak,” she said.
She didn’t hear from anyone from the commission afterwards — and she spent weeks drafting a letter, before ultimately deciding not to send it.
She still feels emotional about the interaction. “I feel like they are not grasping the impacts of the discussion,” she said. “They don’t grasp the heaviness.”
Apart from her personal experience talking to commissioners, one of O’Bomsawin’s main concerns is that the commission’s work will perpetuate a narrative about Abenaki peoples in Vermont — that they were hiding their identities out of fear of being persecuted by the eugenical practices.
Vermont Public has investigated this theory, and did not find evidence to support it.
“It has to be said, Abenaki people were not targeted by sterilization,” O’Bomsawin said. “We want to honor our history as it is.”
She’s not the only one who’s worried about this unsupported narrative continuing to be shared. The Abenaki Councils of Odanak and Wôlinak said the commission “is founded on the myth that the eugenics movement targeted the Abenaki in Vermont,” in a press release earlier this month.
In a statement responding to the concern that the commission’s work could mischaracterize who was impacted by eugenical practices in the state, Schultz wrote they “understand that the recognition of Abenaki tribes in Vermont is a topic with a lot of different viewpoints. Our role is to provide a space where these complex truths can come to light.”
“Our role isn’t to make final judgments on disputed identities or historical viewpoints,” she added.
Balancing confidentiality
Part of O’Bomsawin’s worry comes from a law passed this year that lets members of the public keep their testimony anonymous and allows commissioners to discuss those testimonies in private — an exception to open meeting law.
“You choose if you want to have your name redacted. We worked hard for people to have that ability to do that,” Schultz said.
Gov. Phil Scott refused to sign the bill over concerns about the confidentiality provision, but allowed it to become law.
“This means there will be no visibility into the Commission’s consideration of evidence or testimony, or discussions of the reasons for or against the Commission’s acts or decisions,” he wrote in a letter to state representatives this spring.
Having the option for confidentiality is important to people like Don Stevens. His grandmother grew up in Burlington and was part of genealogical records compiled by the Eugenics Survey of Vermont, along with other relatives. His family is listed as “Indian” and “French” in survey records.
Those documents are coming from people who didn't see you in a good light.Don Stevens, Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki
Stevens is chief of the state-recognized Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki. And for years, he’s publicly connected his family’s inclusion in the survey with being Abenaki — the narrative that Odanak and Wôlinak First Nations dispute. He helped the state Legislature write the apology for eugenics, which says those policies targeted “persons whose extended families’ successor generations now identify as Abenaki” and informed the law that established the commission.
He said not every person impacted by the survey and eugenical practices should have to publicly share that their family was seen as lesser-than by eugenicists.
“Those documents are coming from people who didn't see you in a good light,” he said during a phone interview earlier this year.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate to find out what happened to somebody else’s family, unless it’s in a generic sense.”
A big tent
With confidentiality assured, the commission is about to start taking public testimony from people who have experienced discrimination sanctioned through state policies and practices.
Early in their tenure, commissioners decided to center their work on the four specific identity groups named in the state law: people who identify as Indigenous, Black people and other people of color, Franco-Americans, and people with disabilities and their families — as well as communities up to “the commissioners’ discretion.”
The office’s mission is to seek justice for these groups by taking public testimony, conducting research, building relationships and making recommendations to lawmakers.
For Mark Hughes, with the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, that form of justice feels insufficient.
“I think we’re past that already,” he said during a phone interview earlier this year. “A lot of us, including myself, are pretty tired of telling our stories over and over again.”
“We’re at a point where we just need to be implementing some of these policies that are reparative in nature,” he added.
Hughes has repeatedly advocated for bills in the Vermont Legislature calling for reparations for the institution of slavery. “It has never moved out of committee,” he said.
Others share his skepticism, but there’s also hope the commission will address long-standing issues the Legislature has failed to take up.
I'm very interested to see how this group might endeavor to hold the state accountable.Lindsey Owen, Disability Rights Vermont
The commission is the first of its kind to look at disability rights specifically, said González, the sociologist from Peru. And advocates in the disability community are eager for the office to document harm and discrimination that routinely occurs, like the treatment of parents with disabilities.
Lindsey Owen, the executive director of Disability Rights Vermont, has worked with clients who have lost custody of their children, “seemingly because of assumptions made about somebody’s ability to parent,” she said. “I’ve just seen it done too many times.”
That’s one issue Owen hopes will come to the commission’s attention.
“I'm very interested to see how this group might endeavor to hold the state accountable,” she said.
The commission is starting to take public testimony online in November. And the research workshops at the state archives will start then, too.
Then, they plan to take public testimony in person, beginning in May.
“It’s a process that I believe in with my whole heart,” Schultz said. “Even when it’s messy and painful.” ■
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