Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are still discriminating against white farmers despite a change in administration and the threat of litigation, a civil rights watchdog told the Washington Examiner, amid new whistleblower allegations accusing the agency of offering race-based loan relief under former President Joe Biden.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a well-known constitutional law litigator, is threatening legal action against the Trump-selected Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins over racially discriminatory programming allegedly still in place at the USDA.
In February, Rollins issued a directive rescinding all of her department’s DEI programs, declaring that the USDA is instead prioritizing equality, meritocracy, and color-blind policies. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the USDA has been comprehensively reviewing DEI programming in an effort to reverse the “woke priorities of the Biden administration,” the agency said in a “First 100 Days” press release.
“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s strong stance against DEI, but Secretary Rollins must take the discrimination at USDA much more seriously,” WILL’s managing vice president and deputy counsel Dan Lennington urged. “If she doesn’t, we will hold her accountable very soon in federal court. She has received fair warning from WILL and Congress.”
In early April, WILL sent Rollins a letter demanding she eliminate lingering racial and sex-specific preferences found within three USDA programs. The letter gave her 60 days to make these reforms or face a lawsuit.
For example, the Loan Guarantee Program guarantees farm loans for up to 95% against possible financial loss of principal and interest, allowing eligible farmers to borrow more money at a lower interest rate. WILL said women and racial minorities can receive a higher guarantee (as much as 95%) courtesy of persisting DEI policies, while white males may only get a guarantee of 90% of a loan’s value under the standard plan. A lower guarantee means higher interest rates and loan costs and lower overall loan amounts, WILL explained.
The Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) Program offers financial assistance when the margin between the price of milk and the average feed cost falls below a coverage level picked by the producer. To participate in the program, USDA requires enrollees to pay an annual $100 administrative fee. However, WILL explained that the USDA only charges white male farmers the fee and exempts so-called “socially disadvantaged farmers,” as defined by the U.S. agriculture secretary, from having to pay the fee. USDA regulations currently define this phrase to include only ethnic minorities and women.
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program may award up to 90% of conservation project costs associated with planning, design, materials, equipment, installation, labor, management, maintenance, and training to “socially disadvantaged farmers.” White males, meanwhile, are only entitled to 75% of costs reimbursed under this program, WILL said.
Following no response from Rollins, on May 5, the entire Wisconsin congressional Republican delegation followed up with a second letter addressed to the U.S. agriculture secretary in support of WILL’s demands. All five GOP Wisconsin congressmen called on Rollins to end these prejudiced practices.
“We still have received no response and are preparing a federal lawsuit against Secretary Rollins,” Lennington told the Washington Examiner. “We don’t quite know what is going on at USDA, but we can only assume that holdover staff from the Biden administration are protecting these race-based programs and allowing the discrimination to continue.”
In a statement shared with the Washington Examiner, a USDA spokesperson said, “Over the last four years, the Biden administration left USDA in complete disarray and disfunction and that’s why farmers were being left behind.”
“The entire farm economy has been hurt by Biden’s inaction,” the statement said. “It is absurd that while the Biden Administration was driving up inflation, American taxpayers were forced to fund billions in woke DEI initiatives. No one should be shocked that Biden weaponized bipartisan farm programs to discriminate and provide taxpayer dollars to one group based on race and not on merit.”
“Unlike the Biden Administration, under President Trump, USDA does not discriminate and single out individual farmers based on race, sex, or political orientation,” the spokesperson added. “Secretary Rollins is working to reorient the department to be more effective at serving the American people and put farmers first.” The Trump administration, for instance, rolled out programs, like the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, which provides $10 billion in direct assistance to producers, and all farmers are encouraged to apply, the spokesperson said.
A provision of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Biden’s signature COVID-19 stimulus legislation, offered loan forgiveness based on racial classifications. Farmers and ranchers must be black, Native American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, an Alaskan native, or Pacific Islander in order to participate, the stipulations said.
In 2021, Lennington’s law firm represented 12 farmers across nine states in a racial equality lawsuit challenging the Biden-era farmer loan forgiveness program, which WILL argued unconstitutionally excluded white farmers from accessing billions in relief-related benefits allocated on the basis of race. WILL won the case, with a federal court in Wisconsin issuing a nationwide injunction against the Biden administration. Accordingly, the U.S. Justice Department and USDA announced that they suspended this particular program in compliance with the court order and several other subsequent injunctions issued in courts around the country.
JUDGE HALTS MINORITY-ONLY USDA DEBT FORGIVENESS PROGRAM
This week, a USDA whistleblower came forward to allege that only minority farmers were sent an email explaining a new payment-and-loan-modification program was available specifically for them under Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided $3.1 billion in relief for “distressed borrowers” who were delinquent on qualified loans.
A letter, dated January 2023, reportedly informed the recipients that this new programming exists, although the American Rescue Plan Act no longer grants the statutory authority to do so.
“You are receiving this letter because you were previously informed of your potential eligibility as a Farm Loan Programs borrower for a payment under Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan Act,” the letter said, according to a copy obtained by NewsNation.
In a NewsNation interview, the whistleblower said none of the white farmers he works with received this notification and that USDA staffers were instructed to tell “socially disadvantaged farmers” to stop paying their loans because they would be forgiven.
“It was to pay off anyone who wasn’t a white male,” the whistleblower told NewsNation. “That was the only qualification,” he added. “They were trying to keep this hushed because of the obvious implications of race-based loan forgiveness.”
Under Trump, Rollins directed the USDA to review IRA funding to ensure that programming is “focused on supporting farmers and ranchers, not DEI programs or far-left climate programs,” the USDA spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. As part of this course correction, Rollins has ended the four-year pandemic pause on debt collections. This overhaul includes terminating the “distressed borrowers” program and servicing those loans, the spokesperson said.
In response to the whistleblower’s allegations, two ex-Biden officials have denied to the Daily Mail that white farmers were secretly discriminated against during the federal loan forgiveness process.
“Our guiding principle was doing everything we could to help farmers and ranchers in financial stress stay on the farm,” Biden’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Daily Mail. Vilsack previously described such relief as a form of reparations for past perceived grievances. “For generations, socially disadvantaged farmers have struggled to fully succeed due to systemic discrimination and a cycle of debt,” Vilsack said when the American Rescue Plan Act passed.
USDA SET TO GIVE $2.2 BILLION TO MINORITY FARMERS BY END OF 2023
Former senior USDA policy adviser Scott Marlow, who led the implementation of the IRA’s Section 22006, called the whistleblower claims “absurd” and “inflated.” Marlow, disputing that minority farmers were told to stop their loan payments, said there would have been “no way” for the USDA to keep white farmers off the mailing list. “All of those [programs] were implemented in a race-neutral way,” Marlow insisted. “In our administration, we actually abided by judges’ [rulings] as required by law. Whether we liked it or not.”
But Lennington said his group is troubled by the whistleblower’s claims. “Because if true,” he said, “it would mean that officials from both Biden’s USDA and DOJ violated multiple federal court orders and victimized millions of white farmers around the country.”
WILL is calling on the Trump administration to investigate the latest whistleblower allegations “thoroughly and quickly.” If these claims are legitimate, Lennington said federal officials should take several corrective steps: notify all the victims of this discrimination “and offer to make them whole,” inform the federal courts that the Biden administration “intentionally violated” federal court rulings, and fire those responsible or otherwise hold them accountable.
“For those individuals who no longer are federal employees, USDA should work with Congress to hold hearings and expose the wrongdoing of the Biden era,” Lennington added.
The three programs WILL has flagged are not the only problematic programs remaining at the USDA, noted Lennington. According to WILL’s report identifying areas of reform, titled the “Roadmap to Equality,” the USDA continues to operate at least two dozen racially selective initiatives.