The state of Virginia, one of more than 30 other states that practiced forced sterilizations, followed North Carolina’s lead and has since 2016 been awarding $25,000 to each survivor (“Virginia Votes Compensation for Victims of its Eugenic Sterilization Program” by Jaydee Hanson, Center for Genetics and Society, March 5, 2015).

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The Supreme Court, in a 4-4 deadlock, let stand a lower court’s order that the state of Washington make billions of dollars worth of repairs to roads, where the state had built culverts below road channels and structures in a way that prevented salmon from swimming through and reaching their spawning grounds, that had damaged the state’s salmon habitats and contributed to population loss. The case involved the Stevens Treaties, a series of agreements in 1854-55, in which tribes in Washington State gave up millions of acres of land in exchange for “the right to take fish.” Implicit in the treaties, courts would later rule, was a guarantee that there would be enough fish for the tribes to harvest. Destroying the habitat reduces the population and thus violates these treaties. This decision directly affects the Swinomish Tribe (“A Victory For A Tribe That’s Lost Its Salmon” by John Eligon, The New York Times, June 12, 2018).

On August 25, 1980, the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia (per Judge B. Avant Edenfield) denies the People Organized for Equal Rights (POER) motion (see timeline entry for August 1, 1980) and enters a permanent injunction against efforts to occupy lands at Harris Neck, Georgia, ruling, “Title has vested in the United States and cannot be returned to the original owners without Congressional authorization. There is no remedy for defendants in the courts.”