May 2, 1927 (Monday)
- Buck v. Bell: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., delivered the 8-1 majority opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding a Virginia law permitting compulsory sterilization of mentally retarded women, writing, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their own imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." Pierce Butler was the lone dissenter.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture began the grading of beef sold at retail, on a one-year trial, with "choice" and "prime" grades being applied to those producers who requested the service.
- Died: Ernest Starling, 61, British physiologist
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