Why is race still a factor in adoption?

“I know you really want to be parents, and I can tell that you would love and dote on the child,” Angela Tucker, a consultant for an adoption agency, told Todd and Tammy.“But adopting a Black child requires more than love.

I will not be recommending that you proceed with adopting a Black child.” Tucker is a black woman who was adopted by a white family and the author of the book “You Should Be Grateful: Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption,” which chronicles the harms of such placements.She tells this story about Todd and Tammy in a recent Substack column from early September, “What It Felt Like to Stop a White Couple From Adopting a Black Baby.”Tucker, like many caseworkers at adoption agencies, loves to tell white people about how they could never raise a child who doesn’t look like them and should feel guilty for even trying.

Her approach is not only offensive, it may also place her — and her employers — in legal jeopardy. According to the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, agencies may not discriminate by race when children are placed for adoption out from foster care.And in cases of private adoption — where a parent decides to voluntarily place a child with another family like Todd and Tammy’s — the agency could still be on the hook.

First, if it is also receiving federal funds to do adoptions out of foster care, it could lose that funding.Even if it doesn’t receive public money, couples like Tammy and Todd may be able to file an “implied cause of action” claim under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, according to Mark Fiddler, an attorney who focuses on adoption and foster care.But Tucker and her employer don’t seem to realize this or don’t care.

She offers “a workshop on the realities of racism within child welfare to this and 10 additional white couples hoping to adopt.” Topics include redlining housing policies from 100 years ago.Then she meets with each couple privately to assess how many black people ...