Race And Adoption

As recently reported, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute has called for changes in the federal Multiethnic Placement Act which would allow adoption agencies to consider race and culture as factors in the selection of foster care parents. Ron Nixon reports that in 2003 the state of Ohio paid $1.8 million in fines after a white couple accused social workers of mandating that the couple prepare a plan addressing a black child's cultural needs and evaluating their neighborhood's racial demographics. Two years later a South Carolina social services agency was fined $107,000 for what the federal government determined to be an overemphasis on race in a database matching children and potential adoptive parents.