Ohio Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum's proposal for a federal law banning race as a factor in adoption, with Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois as a co-sponsor, has passed the Senate and moved on to the House.

Senator Metzenbaum's bill would prohibit any agency that receives federal funds from denying a foster care or adoption placement on the basis of race, color or national origin.

"Children should not be forced to languish in foster care because there are not enough parents of the same race to adopt them," Mr. Metzenbaum said in a press release.

His proposal has been hailed as a way to help move black children into permanent homes, with endorsements by Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund and the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

The implication is that policies that favor placing children with families of their own race are keeping black children from being adopted and that whites are needed as adoptive parents because not enough black people are available to adopt black children.

The public debate on transracial adoption as the way to help find homes for black children ignores the discrimination and obstacles in a system that was racially segregated for decades and thus has built no base in the black community.

Transracial adoptions first began in the late 1940s, according to "Transracial and Inracial Adoptions," a 1983 book by Ruth McRoy, a professor of social work at the University of Texas at Austin, and Louis A. Zurcher Jr. that included the results of a study comparing the effects of transracial and same-race adoption on children.

According to the study, "Traditionally, adoption agencies have been operated for the primary purpose of providing white infants to childless white middle-class couples. . . . Nonwhite, physically or emotionally handicapped, and school-age or older children were usually categorized as unadoptable or hard to place due to the minimal demand for such children."

Changing the emphasis

But in the late 1960s and 1970s, fewer white children were available for adoption, and agencies "redirected their efforts toward finding homes for these hard-to-place children," according to the study.

But after a resolution by the National Association of Black Social Workers in 1972 opposing transracial adoptions -- and favoring family preservation as best for black families -- many agencies instituted same-race placement policies.

The debate has raged since then, with blacks arguing that black families are best suited to raise black children in a racist society, and whites countering that love for a child has no color.

But transracial adoption is at best a limited answer to reducing the number of black children in foster care. Most of the children adopted transracially are infants or toddlers. Older black children, handicapped children and sibling groups -- like their white counterparts -- are labeled "special needs" or "hard to place" and are still waiting for homes.

Black adoptive parents like Judy and Managua Locke of Randallstown, and their daughter, Melissa, remain invisible. With the help of a state-funded recruitment program, One Church, One Child of Maryland, which has helped place 140 Maryland children in six years, the Lockes completed the adoption of their daughter in October 1993.

One Church, One Child was created in Illinois in 1980. The idea caught on in black communities across the nation, and has helped place more than 40,000 black children in 39 states, according to the Rev. George Clements, the Chicago priest who founded the organization. There is even a law providing funding for recruitment of black adoptive parents in Florida's black churches based on the One Church, One Child concept.

But the success of One Church, One Child is almost unknown. Other programs and agencies operating successfully across the nation -- most of them created by the black professionals and others working directly with the black community -- attract no attention. Instead, since a disproportionate number of black children are in the foster care system, the perception is that they are there because black people don't want to adopt them.

There is definitely a need for adoptive and foster homes for black children. In Maryland, for example, 68.9 percent of the 6,800 children in foster care in September 1993 were black, according to the state Foster Care Review Board. In comparison, 25 percent of the state's population is black.

Of the 1,300 who are available for adoption, 70.6 percent are black. In the year ending September 1993, 57.4 percent of those children adopted out of a total of 375 to 400 were black.

The Metzenbaum bill seems to be aimed at helping whites adopt nonwhite children. It does not address the discrimination faced by many blacks who attempt to adopt. A 1991 study, "Barriers to Same Race Placements," conducted by the North American Council on Adoptable Children, noted that there is "evidence that many healthy minority infants have been placed with white families, while same-race families wait or have limited access to the system that serves their children."

The discouragers

Here are the 10 factors identified in the study that prevent or discourage black and Hispanic families from adopting:

* "Institutional/systemic racism. Virtually all procedures and guidelines impacting standard agency adoption are developed from white middle-class perspectives."

* "Lack of people of color in managerial positions."

* "Fees. Seventy-five percent of agencies surveyed said adoption fees are a barrier to minority families trying to adopt." Roughly 75 percent of the public agencies surveyed charge no fees at all, compared with 22 percent of private agencies, the study said.

* "Adoption and business" mentality/reality. "Heavy dependence upon fee income, coupled with the fact that supplies of healthy white infants are decreasing drastically, force many [private] agencies to place transracially to ensure survival."

In the eight states for which same-race placement figures could be computed, public agencies as a whole placed 91 percent of their black children in same-race homes, compared to 63 percent for private agencies.

* "Communities' of color historical tendencies toward 'informal' adoption. Potential adopters of color question the relevance of formalized adoption procedures, many times wondering why such procedures are needed at all."

* "Negative perceptions of agencies and their practices. Families of color often possess negative perceptions of public and private agencies and their underlying motives."

* "Lack of minority staff. Minority workers 'in the trenches' are crucial in building trust among families of color."

* "Inflexible standards. Insistence upon young, two-parent materially-endowed families eliminates many potentially viable minority homes."

* "General lack of recruitment activity and poor recruitment techniques. Agencies are unable to set aside financial and human resources required for effective recruitment."

* "Word not out. Communities of color remain largely unaware of the need for their services."

"Specialized" agencies are effective in finding same-race adoptive homes, according to the NACAC study. Out of the 64 private and 23 public child-placing agencies in 25 states surveyed, the study found that 17 agencies "specializing" in placement of minority children found same-race homes for 94 percent of their 341 black children and 66 percent of their 38 Hispanic children.

But the efforts of specialized agencies and programs suffer from both from small numbers and limited funding -- for example, the federal funding for pilot programs in special needs adoption usually is provided for fewer than two years.

NAACP raises objection

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People passed a resolution on transracial adoption in October 1992. The resolution said "transracial adoption in practice has been largely a one-way street involving the placement of black children with white families."

The NAACP endorsed such actions as the use of black child welfare workers in recruiting and evaluating black families for adoption; an end to steering of black families to problem and older youth while whites are allowed to adopt healthy black infants and toddlers; and that agencies consider placement with extended family members.

Even now, more than 20 years after same-race policies were instituted nationwide after the National Association of Black Social Workers' resolution opposing transracial adoption, agencies are still struggling to reach prospective black adoptive parents. As the NACAC study demonstrates, the foster care system has not adjusted itself effectively to the high number of black children who need placement.

The Metzenbaum bill is well-intentioned, but it raises troubling questions, for example: Would same-race placements of black children be declared "discriminatory" against white adoptive parents? Would federal funds now be denied to agencies and programs that specialize in same-race placement?

Because the bill treats transracial adoption as an issue of civil rights and integration, it undermines the progress of same-race placement -- which, it is universally agreed, is preferable for black children (and seldom if ever questioned for white children). The bill allows the system to continue to turn to whites as the source for foster care and adoption of black children instead of expanding to include more blacks.

The success of the 14-year-old One Church, One Child program destroys the idea that black people aren't available to adopt, and shows the strength of the self-help tradition in the black community. The focus should be on increasing the financial support to and awareness of black community initiatives like One Church, One Child and to eliminate the barriers blacks face when trying to adopt.

Karin D. Berry is a copy editor for The Baltimore Sun.