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Race Separatism In The Family: More On The Transracial Adoption Debate, Elizabeth Bartholet

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Some twenty-five years ago a trial court in Virginia upheld the state ban on interracial marriage, reasoning that God created different races and, accordingly, that it was natural to maintain racial purity, and unnatural to engage in racial mixing. 1 At that time, many other state laws banned both interracial marriage and transracial adoption. In Loving v. Virginia, 2 the United States Supreme Court struck down the Virginia antimiscegenation law, reversing the trial court's decision and holding that it was unconstitutional for states to mandate racial separatism in the family. Later, in Palmore v. Sidoti, 3 the Court ruled that …