This article describes the rhetoric and goals of groups who have opposed and supported transracial adoption in the United States. It summarizes the current status of statutory and case law bearing on transracial adoption, and it shares the results of a longitudinal study of families who adopted children of a different race. The thrust of the study, which began in 1971, was to assess the racial identities and attitudes of the transracially adopted children and their biological siblings, and to examine the extent to which the family members were committed to each other.
