Then-Governor Mike Easley offered an apology to victims of the policy in 2002. At the time, North Carolina was the third State in the nation to officially apologize for eugenics practices, following behind Virginia and Oregon though North Carolina was the first State to go beyond a formal apology to actively considering compensation in some form. Easley set up a committee to study the history of the Eugenics Board with instructions to provide recommendations on how to handle what it termed 'program survivors'. The committee recommended five specific steps: