U.S. Stresses No Race Bias in Adoptions : Legislation: Agencies getting federal aid are warned not to delay or deny placements for racial considerations. Long waits for minority children cited.

The government advised adoption and foster-care agencies Monday that if they receive federal aid they may not delay or deny the placement of any children because of racial or ethnic considerations.

The guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services are designed to implement the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, which President Clinton signed last October and which runs counter to past practices by many social workers.

In approving the controversial act, Congress expressed its concern that children from minority groups often are spending long periods of time in foster care--sometimes twice as long as non-minority children--while they wait to be placed in adoptive homes.

The new law is controversial because social workers often have delayed placements to achieve “racial matching” of adopted children. But such a balance is extremely difficult because 40% of the children awaiting adoption are black even though blacks constitute only 12.3% of the population.

The National Assn. of Black Social Workers, for example, has taken the position that black children are better off with black parents. However, the group supports placement in white families if black families cannot be found.

About 445,000 children are in foster care and, for those in line to be adopted, the average wait is two years and eight months. According to the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, nearly half the children in foster care are minorities, and black children in foster care average a third longer wait for adoption than the national median.

Under the new law that becomes fully effective in six months, Mary Jo Bane, assistant secretary of health and human services for children and families, said that the department “is committed to vigorous enforcement . . . to ensure that temporary foster-care placements and permanent adoptive homes are readily available for children who need them, that children are not subject to discrimination in their placements and that all children have the benefit of a loving, permanent home.”

Bane and other officials explained that the law specifically bars agencies from “categorically denying to any person the opportunity to become an adoptive or foster parent solely on the basis of the race, color or national origin of the adoptive or foster parent of the child.”

It also bars agencies “from delaying or denying the placement of a child solely on the basis of race, color or national origin of the adoptive or foster parent or parents involved.”

In an effort to balance the needs of all parties, officials said that the law permits an agency to consider “the child’s cultural, ethnic and racial background and the capacity of prospective foster or adoptive parents to meet the needs of a child of this background.”

What is prohibited, they said, is the use of such factors “in a manner that delays the placement decision.” Rather, the act seeks to ensure that agencies engage “in active recruitment of potential foster and adoptive parents who reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the children needing placement.”

The ultimate sanction would be loss of federal funding, but a government spokesman said: “We don’t expect it would ever reach that point. We intend to work with each state and agency to ensure compliance.”