Shirley Sherrod says proposed contract with USDA insulted her; Vilsack says talks in 'early stages'

Shirley Sherrod, who lost her job as the Department of Agriculture's Rural Development director in Georgia "after media reports misconstrued her statements about white farmers as racially insensitive," said this week that she was insulted by the department's offer of a contract that her spokesman said was worth about $35,000 and didn't include travel expenses, Krissah Thompson reports for The Washington Post. Talks on the contract, part of the agency's "plan to fix longstanding problems with discrimination," are continuing.

UPDATE, June 6: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Hill that journalists are missing the larger point, "that USDA has gone to great lengths to make sure it doesn’t repeat past mistakes," Kevin Bogardus writes. He quotes Vilsack: “The focus shouldn’t be on Shirley, no disrespect to her. The focus should be on the effort of transforming USDA. And Shirley is going to have, I hope, a role in helping oversee that opportunity and that effort.” Vilsack told Bogardus the department’s contract with Sherrod is “in the early stages of discussion.” His remarks appear at the end of a wide-ranging story about his tenure at UDSA.