Page 50 - The Westerner Magazine Halloween 2018

parents, siblings, and eventually In 1968, a newsman in Philadelphia
residents themselves. named Bill Baldini did a five-part
investigation at Pennhurst. A segment
The story eventually got out. What
appeared one night for a week in July
followed was a slew of Supreme Court
and it shocked people. Bill and I are
and Federal Court decisions that
going to be on the radio tomorrow to
eventually effectively ended the era of
promote a conference we’re doing
institutions. There are still a few in the
Friday, September 28.
country, but by and large all states are
closing or moving to close them. His special series brought public

Pennhurst was the critical legal case that attention to the problem like nothing
established that individuals had the had before. Several years later, Geraldo
right to protection under the law. Rivera snuck into Willowbrook in New

York and did the same thing. He filmed
Thomas Gilhool, an attorney with
it and put it on the news. People finally
PILCOP, challenged the state for the
asked, “How could this happen in
rights of the residents. A person who
America?”
was diagnosed with what was called at
the time mental retardation wasn’t The late sixties and early seventies held

allowed to attend public school. They the catalyst for change in institutions so
challenged that, and several challenges that by the 1980s these institutions
followed which centered around living began to fold.
standards.
TW: How did this subject go from the
Pennhurst was central in the movement serious examination we just discussed to
that changed the way we view a Halloween Fright Night?

treatment today. This change affected
Dennis: Commercialization of atrocity is
more than a half-million people. That’s
what it is. Stories got around that bad
why I say Pennhurst was ground zero
things happened. Pennhurst was for
because it exposed the public to
people with intellectual disability. These
conditions that existed in all institutions
people were brain damaged or affected
in the United States and around the
from birth. Mental illness is different
world.
and occurs later on in life.
I don’t know if you remember the TV
There’s a misunderstanding of what it
special series, Suffer the Little Children?
really is about that some people exploit.