The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has recently announced the distribution of $2.2 billion in payments to over 43,000 non-White farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners who claim to have experienced discrimination in the agency’s farm lending programs prior to 2021. Lame duck President Biden took to X to announce the reparations for alleged discrimination.
Farmers and ranchers work around the clock to put food on our tables and steward our nation's land – they should never experience discrimination in farm loan programs.
Today, I'm addressing that inequity. pic.twitter.com/15lSjUK50a
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 31, 2024
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated $2.2 billion to address these claims, with the goal of providing financial assistance to those who experienced discrimination. The USDA writes:
..over 43,000 individuals, including individuals in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, will receive financial assistance through the program. The assistance will help many of them continue farming or enhance their operations, will allow some to begin farming, or in other cases will help to ease lost income.
The recipients include over 23,000 individuals who have or had a farming or ranching operation, who are receiving between $10,000 and $500,000 of assistance, with an average of nearly $82,000. Recipients also include over 20,000 individuals who planned to have a farming or ranching operation, but reported they were unable to do so because they couldn’t get a USDA loan. These individuals are receiving between $3,500 and $6,000 of assistance, with an average of $5000.
While this may seem like a step towards justice, some questions should be asked: Were the applicants discriminated against just because they weren’t White, or was it due to having bad credit? Where will reparations payments such as this lead? And should taxpayers be left footing the bill for the way the USDA handled loans?
For decades, Black farmers and other minority groups in farming have alleged bias in the USDA’s loan process. The USDA has already paid out almost $2 billion in previous class-action suits. There was the class-action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman, which was filed in 1997. The lawsuit alleged that the USDA discriminated against Black farmers when it came to loan approvals and other services. The case was settled in 1999, with the USDA agreeing to pay $1 billion to thousands of Black farmers who had been discriminated against. There were other lawsuits, such as Keepseagle v. Vilsack, which was filed in 1999 and alleged discrimination against American Indian farmers. This case was also settled, with the USDA agreeing to pay $760 million to the plaintiffs.
These lawsuits were used as a justification for how the USDA has historically discriminated against non-White farmers, but they have already been settled. The recent USDA payouts are going to people who never actually proved in a court of law that they were discriminated against. The Biden administration’s USDA is now basically admitting that the allegations are all true and that every one of the 43,000 recipients was actively discriminated against because they weren’t White. If this truly was the case, we have to question why a government agency would continue to employ discriminatory practices even after being forced to shell out almost $2 billion in taxpayer money and why the decision-makers had not been sacked already. In fact, Tom Vilsack, who was the defendant in the aforementioned suit by American Indian farmers, is the current Secretary of Agriculture!
What could have happened is that these loans were denied because the applicants did not have good credit history, but judging non-Whites for bad credit history is now considered ‘racist,’ as it does not account for the historical reasons that caused them to have bad credit. Almost half (20,000) of the recipients were never even farmers or ranchers to begin with, but just wanted the USDA to loan them money to get started. People get rejected for loans all the time; it doesn’t always have to do with racism and they don’t get rewarded monetarily!
While we do not know the demographic breakdown of the recipients, a large percentage seems to be Black. Since some estimates only have 45,000 Black farmers in the United States, this means a large percentage of them were able to claim “racism” and get reparations from the USDA.
Did you know only 45,000 out of the 3.4 million farmers in the United States are Black? https://t.co/AnVIrQiP3s
— Blavity (@Blavity) July 4, 2023
While $2.2 billion may seem like a lot, it’s apparently not enough, and the National Black Farmers Association is seeking more.
The USDA has a long history of refusing to process loans from Black farmers, approving smaller loans compared to white farmers, and in some cases foreclosing quicker than usual when Black farmers who obtained loans ran into problems.
National Black Farmers Association Founder and President John Boyd Jr. said the aid is helpful. But, he said, it’s not enough.
“It’s like putting a bandage on somebody that needs open-heart surgery,” Boyd said. “We want our land, and I want to be very, very clear about that.”
Boyd is still fighting a federal lawsuit for 120% debt relief for Black farmers that was approved by Congress in 2021. Five billion dollars for the program was included in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package.
But the money never came. White farmers in several states filed lawsuits arguing their exclusion was a violation of their constitutional rights, which prompted judges to halt the program shortly after its passage.
Faced with the likelihood of a lengthy court battle that would delay payments to farmers, Congress amended the law and offered financial help to a broader group of farmers. A new law allocated $3.1 billion to help farmers struggling with USDA-backed loans and $2.2 billion to pay farmers who the agency discriminated against.
CNN reports that there are also Black farmers who believe they should be collecting money on behalf of their dead relatives who supposedly experienced discrimination as well.
But the long-awaited payments come amid a backdrop of a group of Black farmers who have sued, saying the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program should be open to applicants filing on behalf of their deceased relatives who faced discrimination.
The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, which says it has over 20,000 members, lost at a federal district court. It’s currently asking the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals to pause the relief payment process and reconsider the lawsuit – before the program runs out of money.
On one hand, proponents argue that all of these payments are necessary to rectify past injustices and level the playing field for disadvantaged farmers. On the other hand, critics argue that the use of taxpayer funds to settle these claims (rather than just granting new loans) is unfair and sets a dangerous precedent for future reparations payments for alleged (not proven) discrimination. Given that Kamala Harris is campaigning to fight “environmental racism” with “environmental justice” (a big talking point these days), we could be in for a drastic redistribution of wealth and resources.
There is also the possibility that at some point White people will ever enter into a class action lawsuit against the government for discriminatory policies adversely affecting their demographic. Affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, championed from the top down, are inherently designed to limit the number of White people who get hired and promoted within companies. Yes, these programs purport to promote diversity and address historical inequalities, but in reality, they perpetuate discrimination against White people. A few recent examples of successful lawsuits include David Duvall, a former senior vice president of marketing and communication at Novant Health, who won $10 million after being fired to make room for more “diverse” leaders at Novant Health, and Shannon Phillips, a former Starbucks regional manager, who won $25.6 million in a lawsuit against Starbucks after she was unfairly punished after two Black men were arrested at a location in 2018. Of course, there was the recent John Deere controversy, part of which involved a video of the CEO talking about how “diverse” people need to be hired instead of White employees. In a most egregious example, a Senior Vice President at Disney said that Disney’s position is, “there’s no way we’re hiring a White male.”
Isn’t this a violation of the Equal Protection Clause and the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Shouldn’t white male applicants be lining up to sue them? #Disney #racialdiscrimination #BoycottDisney https://t.co/y6ZadsENiM
— Dr. Carol M. Swain (@carolmswain) June 20, 2024
In the United States, discrimination against any individual based on their race, including White applicants, is illegal under several federal laws. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is supposed to enforce these laws and investigate claims of discrimination, but White people’s claims are often brushed under the rug in today’s “woke” culture.
We should all be given the same opportunities, judged by our individual merits, skills, and achievements. If non-White farmers believe they were denied opportunities based solely on their race, they should fight for their rights, of course. However, there needs to be a fair and transparent process that ensures that the taxpayer’s hard-earned money is being used wisely and responsibly, which is something the government has a really hard time doing. When most American farmers, the majority of whom are White, are facing financial difficulties and an uncertain future, the government should be doing all it can to ensure our producers are being properly supported.