Read today’s Washington Post story on the federal government’s massive discrimination settlement with African American farmers over being denied benefits because of their race. The evidence was overwhelming that white farmers and agents, working locally to distribute USDA loans, favored white farmers while denying or delaying benefits to black farmers. Some were pushed off their lands.
Initially, the Pigford case was settled for $1.2 billion. More recently the Agriculture resettled the case for $1.15 billion after more black farmers came forward. While the latter may not have a “timetable” for payment, one insider described it as “one of the most substantive cases ever brought against the federal government.”
Congress has to OK the budget request.
The blatant discrimination eventually will cost the federal government even more, as similar cases by Hispanic, Native American and women farmers were filed at about the same time. The evidence in these cases is the same: overwhelming.
Garcia v. Vilsack, however, has been denied class-action status, a willful attempt by USDA lawyers to put off the inevitable. Its Farm Service Agency, where the discriminatory practices were birthed, also require overhaul, plaintiffs say.
Read this story about the Rodriguez Brothers Farm in South Texas, a farming family involved in the lawsuit. It describes how local agents deliberately stalled or denied benefits in an attempt to push them off their substantial land holdings and from a farm that once held such promise.
Attorney Stephen S. Hill, who is representing the Latino farmers, put this to the government, “We don’t begrudge the well-deserved justice that black farmers have received, but . . . we have suffered exactly the same discrimination.”
And so did Native American and women farmers.
Here’s the Express-News editorial on the case.