USDA: Many Bias Cases Settled

DAILY BRIEFING

USDA: Many Bias Cases Settled

The Agriculture Department says it has made major strides in resolving discrimination complaints from black farmers, but the department's critics say USDA is still moving too slowly to address its legacy of discrimination.

"We are facing up to our past," Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said at an employee gathering to mark the agency's civil rights accomplishments.

Glickman said USDA has resolved 229 of 1,118 discrimination complaints involving denial of farm loans and other benefits, the Associated Press reported. The government has reached 15 major settlements with black farmers, who were paid $4.7 million in damages.

"We're clearly not done," Glickman said. "In many respects, it's been harder than we thought."

Some members of Congress remained critical.

"I find the USDA's success in settling only a handful of black farmers' cases, of the thousands still sandbagged in the system, an insult," Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., said.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said it's unfair that some farmers have had to wait so long to have their complaints handled. "They were misled by their government," she said. "They filed their complaints in a timely way. They had no way of knowing they were not being take care of."

One major obstacle, Waters said, is a Justice Department conclusion that many black farmers who filed before 1994 are blocked by the statute of limitations.

A group of farmers filed a federal lawsuit in an attempt to resolve the issue. This week in U.S. District Court, Judge Paul Friedman will be asked to decide whether the statute of limitations applies, to certify the case as a class action for some 2,500 farmers and to set a trial date.

"A national settlement isn't going to occur unless the government realizes the alternative is a trial," an attorney representing the farmers said.