A dozen white farmers “have established a strong likelihood” that a loan forgiveness program for minority farmers is unconstitutional, said the federal judge hearing the lawsuit in Green Bay, Wisconsin. District judge William Griesbach issued a nationwide order blocking debt-relief payments by USDA while he decides — possibly next week — whether to issue an injunction against the program enacted by Congress in March.
The government is due to file its arguments by Friday against the preliminary injunction, said the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which filed the lawsuit. “We look forward to continuing this litigation but urge the administration to change course now,” said institute president Rick Esenberg. The USDA said it would fight to carry out the loan forgiveness program for socially disadvantaged farmers, at an estimated cost of $4 billion.
Small-farm advocates and groups representing American Indian, Hispanic and Black farmers said the Wisconsin lawsuit and related lawsuits against debt relief were “undemocratic actions designed to frustrate and defeat the justice long denied to BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] farmers and ranchers and their communities.” In a statement, the 20 groups said tens of thousands of producers “have endured decades of disparate and discriminatory treatment by the USDA with huge barriers to relief — situations that continue today.”
When he issued the restraining order last week, Griesbach said the loan forgiveness program was too broadly written as a response to a poorly defined harm to qualify as a valid federal response to discrimination. Such remedies must be narrowly tailored to resolve a specific wrongdoing, he said, but loan forgiveness was directed to all socially disadvantaged farmers who owed money on loans made directly by USDA or by banks with USDA loan guarantees, and it was justified as compensation for losses during the pandemic and bias in past administration of USDA programs.
“The court concludes that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merit of their claims that defendants’ [USDA’s] use of race-based criteria in the administration violated their right to equal protection under the law.”
A century ago, one in seven farmers was Black; today, less than 2 percent of farmers are Black.
To read the ruling on the temporary restraining order, click here.