New York (State). Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. Litigation Support Services.

The controversy over inhumane conditions and treatment of residents at the Willowbrook State School (aka Willowbrook Developmental Center), a residential facility for the developmentally disabled on Staten Island, brought national attention to the status and rights of the mentally retarded. The School opened in 1938 and, after serving as a military hospital during World War II, was used as a facility for the severely mentally retarded, including clients transferred from other state schools. The School had the highest percentage of black and Hispanic residents of any state school and was the only school to accept children under age 5.

In the early 1970s, the publicized overcrowding and other conditions at Willowbrook by parents, facility employees, civil rights attorneys, and television reporter Geraldo Rivera lead to a class action suit in 1972 which was brought on behalf of the more than five thousand residents alleging numerous civil rights violations (New York State Association for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Rockefeller). Based on evidence presented when the suit was filed, the court granted immediate relief through a preliminary injunction ordering such steps as the hiring of staff and physical repairs to buildings to alleviate poor conditions at the facility.

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