ROBERT GRABOYES ON ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL: “Alexander Graham Bell is an exemplar of how experts and geniuses can simultaneously do unimaginable good and unspeakable harm, all with the best of intentions. In 1876, Bell introduced the world’s first practicable telephone, bringing the whole world into intimate contact as never before. In that same period, he successfully demanded worldwide changes in the teaching of deaf students and, in so doing, ruined their educations, communities, and lives for nearly a century. Decades later, he feared the raging excesses of eugenics while continuing to lend his name and prestige to that movement—just as it ramped up its agenda of forced sterilizations, rigid segregation, restricted immigration, and state control over who could marry whom. For me, Bell’s story offers profound lessons concerning the state of American education in 2023.”