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1972
The original report into conditions at the Willowbrook State School. This Peabody Award winning expose gripped the nation’s attention and helped lead to the closure of “warehouses for the mentally disabled”. Human beings living in their own filth, abuse including physical abuse, and conditions many thought didn’t exist in America…the doctor had warned it was bad, it was horrible.
Senator Robert Kennedy had visited the facility in 1965, described conditions, and offered a series of recommendations for improving the situation. Social workers and parents of residents had demonstrated before, local newspapers had run stories, and at least one other reporter had tried to gain access inside. Geraldo Rivera’s national expose helped galvanize political attention and helped lead to closure not only of this facility, but others nation-wide.
A class action lawsuit was filed against the state of New York by the parents of 5,000 residents in 1972, ‘New York ARC v Rockefeller’.
In 1975 a consent judement was passed compelling New York to improve community placement for the now-designated ‘Willowbrook class’.
In 1980 a federal law was passed, ‘Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980’.
The last children left the facility in 1987, and some of the grounds are today part of the College of Staten Island.
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