Adoption

The permanent placement of a child into a home other than that in which the child was born. For a number of reasons, adoption historically has been a controversial topic for African Americans. A greater percentage of black families adopt nonrelated children than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. At the same time, many African American couples who would like to adopt are unable to do so, while thousands of African American babies are routinely adopted by white couples. Transracial adoptions (usually adoptions of black children by white couples) have become a particularly sensitive issue in the discussion of adoption in the United States.

One of the roots of the adoption controversy is the fact that most adoptions are handled by agencies that subtly or overtly discriminate against African Americans. For example, most adoption agencies consider financial circumstances when placing a child in an adoptive family. Given that blacks earn less than whites on average, this automatically puts black applicants at a disadvantage for adoption. The fees charged by many agencies also are too steep for many prospective African American adoptive couples. Until the 1960s, most agencies also refused to place infants with parents of a different race. Because adoption agency practices tended to discourage African American applicants, this policy led to African American babies being classified as “hard to place,” which further reduced their chances of adoption.

The civil rights movement and women's rights movement both brought significant changes in adoption practices throughout the country. The rise of feminism was accompanied by greater use of birth control and the legalization of abortion, which significantly reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies, particularly among white Americans. This meant far fewer white children available for adoption. At the same time, the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s helped break down the social barriers between American whites and blacks. The result of these two movements was profound: Before 1960, transracial adoptions were rare, but just eleven years later, white families were adopting one of every three black children adopted.

Child welfare groups at first enthusiastically supported the trend toward transracial adoption. In 1968, the Child Welfare League reversed its opposition to the practice. There were those, however, who were alarmed by the growing trend of white families adopting black children. In 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers criticized whites who adopted African American children, saying that they were committing cultural genocide. Opponents of transracial adoption feared that black children raised in white families would grow up without a strong sense of racial identity or pride. By 1973, the Child Welfare League had reversed itself again, once more calling for a ban on transracial adoptions.

Court challenges to the ban began to appear in the 1980s. The American Civil Liberties Union sued several states over the issue. The courts ruled that race could not be the most important factor in the adoption decision, but the ruling had little immediate effect. Several studies conducted around this time also showed no difference in social adjustment or adverse psychological impacts on black children adopted into white families. A study from 1998 showed that 15 percent of foster children adopted that year went to a family of a different race.

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