## Facts

- A Florida court awarded custody of a three-year-old child to her mother after the parents’ divorce.
- The father later sought to modify custody based on “changed conditions.”
- The asserted change was the mother’s cohabitation with, and later marriage to, a Black man.
- The trial court found no dispute about either parent’s devotion, housing, or the respectability of either parent’s new spouse.
- Despite no finding of parental unfitness, the trial court transferred custody to the father, reasoning the child would likely face social stigma and harm from living in an interracial household.
- Florida’s intermediate appellate court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Equal Protection Clause permits a state court to change child custody based on a parent’s interracial relationship and anticipated social prejudice toward the child.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed and remanded.
- The Court held that anticipated effects of private racial prejudice cannot justify a custody decision resting on racial considerations.
- The Court rejected the custody change where the decision was not based on parenting deficiencies but on predicted societal bias toward an interracial family.

## Legal Principles

- Government action may not rest on racial classifications absent a constitutionally sufficient justification; racial considerations in judicial custody determinations trigger strict equal protection constraints.
- Although child welfare is a substantial governmental interest, it cannot be pursued by giving legal effect to private racial biases.
- Private prejudice may exist beyond direct legal control, but the state may not directly or indirectly validate such prejudice through custody decrees.
- Family law judgments, including “best interests of the child” determinations, remain subject to the Equal Protection Clause.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that a state may not remove a child from a parent’s custody because of the parent’s interracial marriage or because the child might encounter private racial bias, since the law cannot give effect to such prejudice under the Equal Protection Clause.


Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429 (1984)