July 23, 2021
Secretary Thomas
Vilsack
Attention: Chief
of Staff, Katherine Ferguson
Director, FSA, Zach Ducheneaux
Senior Advisor, Dewayne Goldmon
U.S. Department of
Agriculture
1400 Independence
Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC
20250
Secretary Vilsack:
As a follow-up to
our letter of July 16 requesting a meeting with you and your staff, for our
next meeting we submit the following.
The USDA Coalition
of Minority Employees and the Justice for Black Farmers Group have long
advocated for major changes to be made within the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA), Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Six months into your administration as
Secretary, our concerns remain the same. Therein lies our challenges and,
hopefully, many opportunities for you and your staff to partner with us to
create change within USDA on behalf of minority farmers, especially Black
farmers and USDA employees.
Contained in
President Biden’s plan for rural America in his Build Back Better initiative, there
is an assertion that the Obama Administration created improvements in civil
rights at USDA and a new chapter had begun, and that the previous
administration (referring to Trump) slid backwards in these areas. One of the
most significant lines in the policy is this: “Under Obama-Biden, the USDA
sought to address both the structural and cultural causes of systemic
inequality that had in prior generations been reproduced by the policies and
practices of the agency.” A recent Washington Post article captures the
complicity of the OCR during your administration, “Even as USDA suggested that
a civil rights renaissance had occurred during the Obama administration, the
department persisted in ignoring race discrimination complaints. It ran out the
clock on complaints bound by a two-year statute of limitations, and foreclosed
on many farmers of color with pending complaints.” The complete article is
found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/06/28/black-farmers-debt-forgiveness-constitutional/
We see little evidence
of change. That is precisely what we want to work with you on….rooting out systemic
racism and inequality for farmers and employees.
We began corresponding
with the Biden/Harris Campaign and meeting with the Biden Transition Team in
early 2020 followed by a host of communications with you and your team, none of
which have resulted in the substance and clarity that we are seeking.
Our complaints
remain as follows:
·
The
historical mistreatment of Black farmers and related systemic factors;
·
The
institutional organizational structure that allows for a devolution of responsibility;
·
The
failures of the County Committee system;
·
The
failures of the OCR;
·
The
intrenchment of the Office of General Counsel (OGC) in the affairs of the OCR;
·
An
environment that lacks "accountability;”
·
Inequities
of Pigford I and Pigford II with regard to both denials and debt relief;
·
The
absence of utilization of the USDA's land bank by Black farmers;
·
The
incompetent manner in which Census of Agricultural data is misused by the
USDA;
·
A
complete organizational evaluation and set of changes to insure equitable
treatment;
·
The
endorsement of a program of reparations for Black farmers;
·
Review
and update the Endangered Black Farmer Act of 2007;
·
Conduct
a series of meetings with key persons to assess systemic racism in programs
and services;
·
Greater
institutional and programmatic support for urban farmers and urban
communities;
and
·
Discussion
regarding the Commodity Credit Corporation and how it can benefit
Black farmers and others.
The above list is
not new. Senator Elizabeth Warren found our issues and concern to be
compelling. She addressed them in her plan during her presidential campaign. Our
opinion is that 90% of the changes we recommend are found in The Justice for
Black Farmers Act of 2021 and that they could be enacted with the stroke of
your pen.
Investigative
reporting supports our assertions that your policies during your first two
terms led to even further disenfranchisement of Black farmers and others.
Unless you move swiftly and thoroughly, things will continue to deteriorate
under your leadership. One of the things that is most troubling for us is what
we heard from a member of the President Biden Transition Team on July 31, 2020.
We were told that what we were asking, debt relief for Black farmers, was “unconstitutional.”
Surprisingly, we are now hearing that term in the white farmer lawsuits which
have derailed the historic debt relief for Black farmers and others.
For our issues and
concerns, listening sessions are by far not the cure. USDA knows their internal
and external problems and solutions. So, let’s get on with the business of
fixing the systemic problems at USDA. For instance, USDA already has all it
needs in terms of information about the problems. You have the Civil Rights
Action Team report (February, 1997), the Civil Rights Implementation Team
Report (March, 1998), the Harvard Brief, the $10M Jackson Lewis Report, the
Office of Inspector General reports, the General Accounting Office Reports, and
a host of other reports and research, just to name a few. Many of the
recommendations found in these reports can solve the systemic racism problems
at USDA. The Clinton/Glickman Administration established the framework for all
future administrations to follow in order to correct systemic racism and the administration
and processing of civil rights complaints for the future. The Vilsack/Leonard
administration refused to use these reports and processes as benchmarks. The Senator
Warren Plan and The Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2021 have many of the resolutions
to the systemic problems at USDA. USDA
does not have to reinvent the wheel.
We are obviously
concerned about debt relief and how the numbers of Black farmers and others eligible
for relief continue to change. We remain disturbed about your process,
one that is well beyond 134 days, which is prolonging the economic suffering of
Black farmers. Former President Trump was able with a stroke of the pen to
provide relief for predominantly white farmers in 12 to 14 days via the Market Facilitation
Program without congressional approval. President
Biden could do the same. If USDA has the records to abruptly foreclose on Black
farmers, you could have paid off the debts with similar speed. This is an added
political miscalculation.
More importantly,
and painfully, we can count over 40 Black farmers who have died waiting for
justice. How many more Black farmers must die waiting for justice from USDA?
As noted above, we
continue to be especially disturbed about the OCR and Deputy Assistant
Secretary, Monica Rainge, and her conflicting remarks with regard to how many
cases remain unresolved/backlogged. This does not explain the enormous number
of civil rights complaints that have been in Deputy Assistant Secretary Monica
Rainge’s office for decades. As we stated, historically OCR has been called “a
closing machine” and “dysfunctional.” We have no evidence to suggest to the
contrary. In fact, several farmers on our recent call with you have ongoing
cases within OCR. We are led to believe, then, that Monica Rainge was providing
us false information. Based on her response, we are also not convinced that
there is indeed a “fire-wall” between OGC and OCR as she stated. This needs to
be explained to us with clarity. This cannot be accomplished with everyone
rushing off the Zoom call to attend other meetings after only a half hour of
discussion.
We remained
troubled by the decades of systemic discrimination at USDA that harms
especially Black farmers and USDA employees. Many of the items that were
offered during our previous meeting with you did not get to the
solution/resolution (told after 30 minutes the meeting would end) of the many
systemic concerns that we had previously addressed in our communications. Again,
recent reports and investigative news articles confirm our allegations of the continued
widespread racism and other abuses at USDA. Also, we clearly expressed our
concerns regarding the county committee system that still inflicts pain and
suffering on Black farmers and remains central to the marginalization of Black
farmers and others. Nothing has been done by this administration to correct it.
By way of summary,
accountability, transparency, independent oversight, and rooting out systemic
racism are vitally important to us all. Guilty officials are able to act with
impunity.
When we met with
you and your team in late May, we found the meeting to be unsatisfactory in
terms of the amount of time we had allocated and the lack of attention to the
substantive issues that we brought to the table. In short, the meeting left us
frustrated, disappointed, and insulted. We have voiced our displeasure by your mistreatment
and you have been unresponsive.
We look forward to
meeting with you and your staff in the next few weeks toward a better outcome. The
people we serve (approximately 100 urban and rural farm groups and advocates
around the country) deserve better.
Until then,
silence is not an option.
Respectfully,
Lawrence Lucas,
President Emeritus
USDA Coalition of
Minority Employees
Representative,
Justice for Black Farmers Group
www.agcoalition.org
LawrLCL@aol.com
856-910-2399
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