We all know that it’s illegal for government to discriminate based on race. But does this hold true of government adoption policies?

Should the government be permitted to use race as a criterion in evaluating the suitability of parents who want to adopt? Should the government be able legally to prefer black parents over white parents when selecting parents for a black child?

Current law, adopted in the mid-1990s, requires states to encourage more black parents to consider adoption. But the law also bars states from using race as a factor in selecting parents for adoption.

A number of child welfare advocates are not pleased with the current color-blind state of adoption law, according to the Associated Press. They have endorsed a new report by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which recommends that adoption decisions become more race-conscious. “The view that we can be colorblind is a wonderful, idealistic perspective, but we don’t live there,” says Adam Pertman, the Institute’s director. The report states that race should be a permissible factor for selecting parents of a child in foster care.

But there are inconvenient truths that the Institute and its supporters seem to be ignoring. In 2005, the out-of-wedlock birth rate for non-Hispanic blacks was almost 70 percent, while that for non-Hispanic whites was 25.3 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics,. Until this striking disparity changes, the racial disparity in foster care is unlikely to change. According to the AP,

the foster care system has a disproportionately high number of black children, and on average they languish there nine months longer than white children before moving to permanent homes. The latest federal figures showed 32 percent of the 510,000 children in foster care were black in 2006, compared to 15 percent of all U.S. children.

Our current colorblind adoption laws, which the Institute rejects, have brought about great progress in providing homes for black children who otherwise would have languished indefinitely in foster care. A New York Times review of the 2000 census showed that slightly more than 16,000 white households have adopted black children. Data from the Department of Health and Human Services indicates that adoption of black children by white couples has increased every year since 1998 — to 26 percent in 2004 from 14 percent in 1998.

The Donaldson Adoption Institute is wrong on this one. Given the disparity between the number of black kids and white kids in need of adoption, the choice is often not between white parents and black parents for a black child. The choice is between white parents and indefinite, prolonged foster care.

That choice should be an easy one.