Federal judge in Wisconsin blocks debt relief for farmers of color; says specific, intentional bias must be shown

A federal judge in Wisconsin has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Department of Agriculture from implementing the loan-forgiveness program for farmers of color, passed as part of the latest pandemic relief bill. 

District Judge William Griesbach noted that the relief bill said Congress had determined that the minority groups eligible for the debt write-off “had suffered discrimination in the USDA programs and that had been largely left out of recent agricultural funding and pandemic relief,” but he said USDA had not shown “that the loan-forgiveness program targets a specific episode of past or present discrimination,” a key standard. He said the program also doesn't meet the case-law rule that there be evidence of intentional discrimination, and that such programs be "narrowly tailored."

Griesbach, a George W. Bush appointee, gave USDA until Friday to respond to the motion for an injunction in a lawsuit filed by farmers from 12 states including Wisconsin. They are represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which says it favors conservatism and personal freedom.

The Rural Coalition, a liberal group, issued a statement saying in part, "No serious observer of USDA’s role in American agriculture can doubt that the Department has engaged in decades of intentional, and systematic, discrimination based on race and ethnicity. The results have been catastrophic and have completely reshaped farming by eliminating a wide swath of farmers. If ever there was a constitutional basis for taking race into account when making policy this is it. In its decision the Court appears oblivious to this history, and hostile to efforts to achieve true racial justice."