# Society for Genetic Education The **Society for Genetic Education (SAGE)** was a pro-eugenics group founded by [[John Tanton]] in **1996**. Tanton was the Michigan ophthalmologist behind [[FAIR]] and the rest of the [[Tanton Network]]. Almost everything known about SAGE comes from one source: Tanton's own papers, deposited at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich read them and published the findings in 2008. SAGE is the smallest entity in the network, and the most candid. ## What the record shows The SPLC says Tanton, "after starting his own eugenicist group, the Society for Genetic Education in 1996," wrote to [[Robert K. Graham]], the California millionaire who founded the [[Repository for Germinal Choice]] (the "Nobel Prize sperm bank"), "to discuss public relations strategies." Two lines from Tanton's **September 18, 1996** letter to Graham carry the weight: - **The method.** Describing SAGE's website, Tanton wrote: "We report ways [eugenics] is currently being done, but under the term genetics rather than eugenics." According to the SPLC, the site featured eugenic breeding of plants and animals as a way to accustom the public to genetic manipulation, and to "raise the question of its application to the human race." - **The goal.** "Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less?" The same correspondence continued the next year. On May 21, 1997, Tanton wrote to [[Richard Lynn]] to congratulate him on his book *Dysgenics*, about the less intelligent "outbreeding" the intelligent (see [[Dysgenics]]). ## What is not documented There is no known source for SAGE's board, publications, budget or web address. There is also none tying it to Tanton's U.S. Inc. umbrella or to [[Pioneer Fund]] money. Tanton's documented Pioneer relationship ran through FAIR, which received about $1.3 million in Pioneer grants from 1985 to 1994 (see [[Eugenics Timeline]]), and he met Pioneer's president in 1997 to discuss FAIR fundraising. Claims that SAGE was funded by Pioneer, or was a U.S. Inc. project, are inference unless a primary source turns up. ## Why it matters SAGE matters to the vault for its method, not its scale. The September 1996 letter states the [[Passive Eugenics]] approach in one sentence: keep the content and change the word. It is Tanton's own private description of the move his public network made with immigration: - **In public:** genetics, carrying capacity, wages and the environment. - **In private:** the "less intelligent" who "logically should have less." > [!note] Disambiguation > Not to be confused with **SAGE**, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment air-defense system, which has its own page in this vault. The Tanton organization is filed under its full name for that reason. ## See also - [[John Tanton]] · [[Tanton Network]] · [[FAIR]] · [[Passive Eugenics]] - [[Robert K. Graham]] · [[Repository for Germinal Choice]] · [[Richard Lynn]] · [[Dysgenics]] - [[Eugenics]] · [[Scientific Racism]] · [[Pioneer Fund]] · [[Southern Poverty Law Center]]