When a child is given up for adoption, there are many shared
sacrifices and difficult decisions that both the adoptive and
the birth parents must make. Factors like race, religious
affiliation and family history only serve to complicate the
already cumbersome process of finding a forever family. In 1994,
President Clinton signed the “Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA)
into law”:http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/mepa94/, which
prohibited the use of “race, color, or national origin of a
child or of a prospective parent” in order to “to deny a
particular foster care or adoptive placement.” On August 20,
1996, the law was amended, making it illegal for any institution
that receives federal funding to consider race as a factor in
the adoption process. Fifteen years later, the law that meant to
put an end to racial politics in adopting is still met with
mixed emotions, and it has left many questioning the impact that
it has had on African-American foster children and the
recruitment of adoptive and foster paren