This paper is an overview of interracial adoption, an issue which has become increasingly important because of the dramatic increase in the number of minority children in the foster care system. Opponents argue that racial matching helps preserve the cultural heritage of the black community and, despite the evidence of long-range studies, is in the best interests of the child. Increasingly, many experts in the field contend that the limited pool of minority families seeking to adopt significantly increases the time in which children remain in the system, which is much more harmful; they advocate finding permanent homes for children wherever they are available, without regard to race. Studies support the contention that interracial adoption has not proved harmful to children and has in fact often had a beneficial effect on both children and their adoptive families. Nowhere else in American society can race be used as the basis of discrimination; it is only in the adoption process that it is openly encouraged within the established system. This situation is starting to change, but challengers face an uphill battle.
Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard lawyer and an important voice in the movement toward race-blind adoption placements, observes, "How we deal with race in the intimate context of the family says a lot about how we will treat race in other social contexts" (1993, p. 94). Until the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, interracial adoption was practically unheard of in America. With increasing opposition to racial discrimination, however, white families began to consider adopting nonwhite children, and agencies started proposing interracial placements. Nevertheless, within a decade placement of black children with white adoptive families had found a major opponent.
The principal adversary is the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW), with the support of social workers in general (though this supp...