Palmore v. Sidoti

Petitioner
Linda Sidoti Palmore
Respondent
Anthony J. Sidoti
Petitioner's Claim
Depriving a parent of custody because the parent is involved with someone ofanother race violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Robert J. Shapiro
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
John E. Hawtrey
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger (writing for theCourt), Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
25 April 1984
Decision
Using race as a factor in awarding child custody violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Significance
The Court recognized the existence of racial biases in society but held thatthe law cannot govern in deference to those biases.
The Supreme Court rarely hears child custody cases, but it issued a ruling inPalmore v. Sidoti because a constitutional issue was at stake: whether awarding custody based on anticipated racial prejudices violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Reversing the judgments of the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that a parent may not be deprived of childcustody solely because he or she is involved in an interracial relationship that might cause the child to face harassment from a disapproving society.
When Linda Sidoti Palmore and Anthony J. Sidoti, both white, were divorced inMay of 1980, custody of their three-year old daughter Melanie was awarded tothe mother. In September of 1981, the father filed a petition to change thecustody status because the living environment at the mother's house had changed. The father said that on several occasions the mother had not properly looked after their daughter, and he protested that the mother was living with ablack man, Clarence Palmore, Jr., whom the mother married in November of 1981.
While noting the father's allegations about the mother's treatment of Melanie, the Florida trial court found that both parents were unquestionably devotedto their child and able to provide adequate housing for her. The trial courtalso said the new spouses of both parents were respectable people. In marrying a black man, however, the mother had created a home environment that boththe father and many people in society found unacceptable, the trial court said.

This Court feels that despite the strides that have been made in bettering relations between the races in this country, it is inevitable that Melanie will, if allowed to remain in her present situation . . . , sufferfrom the social stigmatization that is sure to come.

The trial court awarded custody to the father, and Florida's Second DistrictCourt of Appeals affirmed the ruling without issuing a written opinion. A unanimous Supreme Court then reversed the rulings of the lower courts. The heartof the Fourteenth Amendment, Chief Justice Burger argued, was to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination imposed by the government. In order to be allowed under the Constitution, racial classifications must serve a "compelling governmental interest" and be absolutely necessary for meeting that purpose. The state's duty to protect children from being harassed by racially intolerant people is a compelling interest, Burger wrote, but it is unconstitutional to protect the children by codifying social prejudices into law.

The Constitution cannot control such prejudices but neither can it toleratethem. Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot,directly or indirectly, give them effect.

Burger cited the Supreme Court's ruling in a similar case, Buchanan v. Warley (1917), in which the Court overturned a Kentucky law prohibiting blacks from buying houses in white residential areas. Although the ordinance aimed to preserve the public peace by making racial confrontations less likely, it did so by taking away constitutionally protected rights.
Recognizing the reality of racial prejudices in American society, Burger saida child living with a racially mixed couple might face problems that a childliving with homogenous parents would not. Still, the Court had "little difficulty" concluding that anticipated racial prejudice in society was not sufficient justification for overriding the constitutional right to equal protection under the law.
Related Cases

• Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917).
  
• Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

Interracial Adoption
Interracial, or transracial, adoption involves children whose race or ethnicity differs from that of their adopting parents.
Interracial adoptions within the United States are predominately African American/white adoptions. In 1995, 100,000 children, of which 45 percent were black and 35 percent white, needed adoptive homes. Yet, approximately 67 percentof all families waiting to adopt are white, with some eager to receive a black child. However, due to societal taboos against race mixing, agencies commonly block adoption of black children by white families. Black children are three times less likely than white children to be adopted. As of 1997, federallaw prohibited states from denying adoption on the basis of race, color, or national origin. In 1998, Transracial Adoption Group of Los Angeles estimated175,000 black or biracial children had been adopted by white parents since 1968, but fewer than 1,000 such adoptions occurred nationwide in 1997. Numbershave vacillated due to changing attitudes and laws.
American families frequently turned to international adoption. In 1997, 3,816adoptions were from Russia, up from 1,896 in 1995; 3,597 from China, up from2,130 in 1995; 1,654 from South Korea; 1,228 from North America, excluding the United States; 548 from South America; and, only 186 from Africa.
Sources
Lewin, Tamar. "New Families Redraw Racial Boundaries." The New York Times. 27 October 1998.