I just came across an article in the Harvard Magazine on Harvard University's involvement in, even leadership of, the eugenics movement at the end of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. A teaser:

But in part because of its overall prominence and influence on society, and in part because of its sheer enthusiasm, Harvard was more central to American eugenics than any other university. Harvard has, with some justification, been called the “brain trust” of twentieth-century eugenics, but the role it played is little remembered or remarked upon today. It is understandable that the University is not eager to recall its part in that tragically misguided intellectual movement—but it is a chapter too important to be forgotten.