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Solangel Maldonado, Romantic Discrimination and Children, 9 Chicago-Kent Law Review 105 -133 (2017) (171 Footnotes Omitted)

SolangelMaldonadoIn recent years, social scientists have used online dating sites to study the role of race in the dating and marriage market. Their research has revealed a racialized and gendered hierarchy that disproportionately excludes African-American men and women and Asian-American men. For decades, other researchers have studied the risks and outcomes for children who grow up in single-parent homes as compared to children raised by married parents. This Essay explores how racial preferences in the dating market potentially affect the children of middle-class African-American mothers who lack or reject opportunities to marry. What is the relationship between racial preferences in the dating and marriage market and children's access to resources and opportunities? Do racial preferences in the dating and marriage market increase the likelihood that children of middle-class African-American mothers will be raised in homes with fewer resources and limited access to opportunities available to other children with similarly educated parents? If so, what, if anything, should the law do to minimize racial preferences' effects on children?