Abstract:
Although the United States' legal system has always contended with families which crossed racial boundaries, the legalization of interracial marriage in 1967 and the accompanying civil rights era significantly altered the legal and social status of these families. In the era that followed, family courts across the country struggled to account for the racial composition of these families when they became involved in custody disputes. The mid- to late-1970s and the early-1980s provide a number of informative court cases which dealt with questions about mixed race families in custody disputes. In 1984, one case even rose to the level of the United States Supreme Court. These cases are largely notable for their diversity and inconsistency, so it is difficult to make definitive statements about what these cases demonstrate about race in this period. That said, the cases do reveal a debate about how to evaluate the harms of racial discrimination when determining a child's best interests. While some courts deemed the harms of racial discrimination to be important in deciding a child's living situation, others suggested that ignoring the issue of race would result in better outcomes for both society and for children themselves. Using evolving doctrines of social science and changing terminology, courts did their best to offer definitive legal standards on the use of race in custody cases but, in the end, often left the questions they confronted unanswered.
