A group of White male farmers persuaded a federal court to temporarily block part of the US Department of Agriculture rules aimed at assisting minority and women farmers with disaster relief.
Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk issued the preliminary injunction on June 7, saying the farmers will likely succeed in their Fifth Amendment equal protection lawsuit against the USDA.
Pending resolution of this lawsuit, the government is enjoined under the 2022 emergency relief program from making or increasing payments, or providing any additional relief, based on certain “socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher” designations, the court said.
“Defendants may, however, continue to apply progressive factoring on future relief applications, so long as that is done independently of any race- or sex-based considerations,” Kacsmaryk said.
The ruling is the latest hurdle for President Joseph Biden from Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has proven to be a roadblock to Biden administration policies on immigration, abortion, and LGBTQ rights. Last year, Kacsmaryk blocked the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a medical abortion drug in a case that’s now before the US Supreme Court.
The USDA program rules grant relief from crop and livestock disasters and Covid-19-related income loss, with more aid going to farmers who submitted claims categorizing themselves as socially disadvantaged. The agency defines socially disadvantaged as American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Black, African-American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, or women.
Race-based government classifications violate the Fifth Amendment unless they further a compelling government interest and are narrowly tailored, Kacsmaryk said. Sex-based classifications are also presumptively unconstitutional unless they are narrowly tailored to serve an “important” government interest, the judge said.
Kacsmaryk rejected the government’s argument that the program has a compelling interest in minimizing and remediating the effects of past discrimination because it didn’t show the USDA regulations would remediate past discrimination. The rules actually discriminate based on race and sex by giving out more money to women and racial minorities, the order said.
Even if the government had met the threshold of having a compelling or important interest for race or sex based classifications, the program wasn’t narrowly tailored to meet the goal of rectifying past discrimination in farm aid, Kacsymark said.
The rules are overinclusive because the USDA provides additional relief to some racial minorities and women absent any showing that it’s needed, the judge said. The program is also underinclusive because “it will deny additional aid to farmers not of the USDA’s preferred races who are in danger of financial ruin,” including Jewish, Italian, and Irish farmers, Kacsymark said.
The White farmers, who said they were denied some or all of the relief funding they applied for due to their race or sex, showed that without an injunction they would face irreparable harm such as ongoing stigma and economic loss, Kacsymark said.
The ruling is another setback for government programs aimed at promoting diversity. A separate Texas federal judge in March ruled that the US Commerce Department violated the Constitution by discriminating against White business owners and ordered the department’s Minority Business Development Agency to begin serving all races.
Southeastern Legal Foundation, Mountain States Legal Foundation, and Tormey & McConnel Attorneys represent the farmers.
The case is Strickland v. USDA, N.D. Tex., No. 2:24-cv-00060, 6/7/24.
