Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) and Mountain States Legal Foundation represent Texas farmers suing the Biden Administration Department of Agriculture (USDA) for unconstitutionally and unlawfully awarding disaster and pandemic relief funds to certain farmers based on race and sex.
Farming is a difficult livelihood. One of the biggest hurdles farmers face is challenging weather conditions that are out of their control. That is why Congress has allocated over $25 billion in emergency disaster and pandemic relief funds since 2020 to help farmers affected by natural disasters and COVID-19 through various programs.
But rather than help farmers like Plaintiffs Alan and Amy West, Bryan Baker, and Rusty Strickland—who have owned their family farms for decades and have suffered from the effects of droughts and the COVID-19 pandemic—the USDA is harming them by allocating those congressional funds to them differently than to other farmers based on factors including race and sex.
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On the day President Biden took office, he declared that his administration would adopt “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda.” Equity, which focuses on equal outcome, is different from equality, which demands equal treatment and opportunity under the law. In response, over 90 executive agencies created Equity Action Plans, including USDA.
Bryan Baker’s farm
To further its commitment to equity, USDA recognizes a category of farmers that it refers to as “underserved farmers,” which includes veterans, new farmers, and farmers in poverty, and another category of “socially disadvantaged farmers,” which includes women, American Indians or Alaskan Natives, Asians or Asian-Americans, blacks or African-Americans, Hispanics or Hispanic-Americans, and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders.
Congress specifically set aside funding to aid farmers affected by natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. But unilaterally and without congressional authorization, USDA under the Biden Administration implemented a catch: farmers would receive more of those relief funds if they were “underserved” or of a “socially disadvantaged” race or sex.
Alan and Amy West
As a result, farmers like Plaintiffs Rusty Strickland, Alan West, and Bryan Baker—all white men who were not “socially disadvantaged” or “underserved” as USDA defined those terms—received less money in disaster relief funds than if they had been of a different race or sex.
SLF and MSLF filed a lawsuit on behalf of Plaintiffs challenging USDA’s actions as both unlawful and unconstitutional. Not only is USDA discriminating against Plaintiffs based on race and sex, but it is also doing so without any congressional authorization to act in clear violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
This isn’t the first time USDA has ignored checks and balances or the Constitution. SLF and MSLF won an injunction against USDA in 2021 when it attempted to operate a race-based loan forgiveness program that automatically forgave the debts of “socially disadvantaged” farmers while excluding white farmers. Following the victory, Congress repealed the program altogether. Yet USDA has found a new way to discriminate based on race, now even expanding its programs to discriminate based on sex.
SLF and MSLF filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, on behalf of Rusty Strickland, Alan and Amy West and their farm (Alan and Amy West Farms), and Bryan Baker and his farm (Double B Farms, LLC).