sterilize Black, mulatto and American Indian children simply because they were "colored", a small number of Virginia eugenicists in key positions found other ways to achieve that goal. The Sterilization Act gave State institutions, including hospitals, psychiatric institutions and prisons, the statutory authority to sterilize persons deemed to be "feebleminded" — a highly subjective criterion. Dr. Joseph DeJarnette, director of the Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia, was a leading advocate of eugenics. DeJarnette was unsatisfied with the pace of America's eugenics sterilization programs. In 1938, he wrote: Germany in six years has sterilized about 80,000 of her unfit while the United States — with approximately twice the population — has only sterilized about 27,869 in the past 20 years. ... The fact that there are 12,000,000 defectives in the U.S. should arouse our best endeavors to push this procedure to the maximum ... The Germans are beating us at our own game. By "12 million defectives" (a tenth of the population), DeJarnette was almost certainly referring to ethnic minorities, as there have never been 12 million mental patients in the United States. According to historian Gregory M. Dorr, the University of Virginia School of Medicine (UVA) became "an epicenter of eugenical thought" that was "closely linked with the national movement." One of UVA's leading eugenicists, Harvey Ernest Jordan, Ph.D. was promoted to dean of medicine in 1939 and served until 1949. He was in a position to shape the opinion and practice of Virginia physicians for several decades. This excerpt from a 1934 UVA student paper indicates one student's thoughts: "In Germany, Hitler has decreed that about 400,000 persons be sterilized. This is a great step in eliminating the racial deficients." The racial effects of the program in Virginia can be seen by the disproportionately high number of Black and American Indian women who were given forced sterilizations after coming to a hospital for other reasons, such as childbirth. Doctors sometimes sterilized the women without their knowledge or consent in the course of other surgery. Responses to the Racial Integrity Act In the early twentieth century, minorities in everyday southern society feared to voice their opinions due to severe oppression. Magazines such as the Richmond Planet offered the Black community a voice and the opportunity to have their concerns heard. The Richmond Planet made a difference in society by openly expressing the opinions of minorities in society. After the