In the 80's attitudes began to change. The crack epidemic caused a surge in available black children whose drug addicted parents lost parental rights. They lingered in foster care. One white couple in Cincinnati was refused permission to adopt their black foster child. A black couple from New York adopted him and a short time later beat him to death. Incidents like that and the rising tide of waiting black children prompted Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio to call for a change. He sponsored the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, passed in 1994, that forbids using race as a factor in placement. One exception, is for native american children. Under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, indian tribes get special jurisdiction of custody cases involving indian children.

The law governing other race children has changed but many social workers have not. In 1999 five white couples sued Hamilton County, saying social workers there were illegally preventing them from adopting non-white children. This May, the county reached an out of court settlement with the couples.

Kathleen Bointon of Maple Heights, a white woman, adopted a black girl and she did hear complaints...

Bointon: I was in a workshop one time with a social worker and she said she would rather see a child in an orphanage or in residential care than to be adopted by a white family. So I asked, "Ok, have you adopted?" She said no. And I asked again, "Why not?" Then I asked her why they're [the children] being put in my home.

Former social worker, Darren, an African American and now an adoptive father himself, points out that in the old days black women raised white children who called them "nanny" or "momma..."

Darren: I also know a foster kid that was raised by an Amish family. And she was black. Now, how many black Amish kids do you know? None. But that little girl was very smart and she was well adjusted and ended up going to college. If she was in a situation where she was in a group home, would she have went to college? Nobody knows, but the answer probably is, no she probably wouldn't.