Suits Seek to Ease Interracial Adoption

A conservative legal foundation joined forces with a leading liberal law professor Thursday in an effort to overturn state restrictions on interracial adoption of foster children, filing one lawsuit in Texas and joining one in Tennessee.

The Institute for Justice expects to file another suit in California soon to prevent children, especially minority youngsters, from languishing in foster care for months or years when adults of different races are willing to adopt them.

Forty-three states encourage or require social workers to match children with adoptive parents of the same race, said Clint Bolick, the institute’s litigation director. The institute contends that the Constitution forbids racial discrimination in adoptions.

He also said “race matching” occurs even in states that bar it.

“From coast to coast, regardless of the applicable state laws, social workers actively thwart interracial adoptions in the misguided belief that race matching is more important than a loving home regardless of race,” Bolick said.