In 1913, the Michigan Legislature authorized the sterilization of mentally impaired people confined in public institutions, even over a parent or guardian's objection, to prevent them from having children. At the Michigan Home and Training School in Lapeer, the state's largest such institution, its superintendent sought to sterilize a patient under the new law, but the patient's guardian challenged the law as unconstitutional. Lapeer County Circuit Judge William B. Williams agreed, ruling that because the law applied only to people confined in public institutions while excluding feeble minded persons in private care or at home, it was discriminatory class legislation that undermined its own object. In 1918, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld that ruling in Haynes v. Lapeer Circuit Judge, holding that the distinction violated the equal protection provision of the United States Constitution and showing the Constitution's power to protect vulnerable members of society.