Reply #111: Black farmers' bias lawsuit against the USDA

[Brewman_Jax]

From the article: A federal judge yesterday tentatively approved a historic agreement requiring the Department of Agriculture to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to black farmers who say they were denied government loans and other assistance because of their race.

The agreement settles a class action lawsuit filed in 1997 by more than 1,000 black farmers and marks the first time that the government has agreed to compensate them as a group for racial bias that has been documented by various federal officials for years. Discrimination by USDA officials has been cited by civil rights advocates and others as a major reason why the ranks of black farmers have dwindled at three times the rate of white farmers. Blacks now account for less than 1 percent of the nation's farmers.

The deal is one of the largest racial discrimination settlements in federal history and puts to rest an issue that has long been a major embarrassment for the Agriculture Department. The vast agency is derisively referred to as the "last plantation" by many black farmers and by many of the department's own minority employees who see it as a bastion of racial prejudice.

In the end, the agreement could cost the federal government $400 million or more, depending on the number of farmers who step forward with claims. Plaintiff attorneys said that as many as 4,000 claimants roughly one in four of the nation's black farmers could end up taking part in the deal, although USDA officials dispute that figure.



http://www.fs.fed.us/people/aasg/correspondence/wp_farmers.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01E4DC143EF936A35752C0A96F958260