Black Farmers to seek rehearing after appeals court rules against them in discrimination aid suit

A farmer on a tractor sprays soybean crops. (Photo by Westend61/Getty Images)

The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association plans to seek a rehearing after a U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld a ruling barring families from filing “legacy claims” on behalf of deceased relatives who suffered from farm-lending discrimination.

Percy Squire, the attorney representing the association and other plaintiffs in the case, told Tennessee Lookout they intend to seek a rehearing from the panel and a rehearing from the entire United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “because … this is a case of that importance.”

Squire’s clients, he said, are “seeking to be able to file claims on behalf of the estates of deceased family members who, due to past discrimination, were unable to continue their farming enterprise.”

The Black Farmers association and several individual plaintiffs filed an initial lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in August 2023, alleging that the department acted arbitrarily when it refused to accept those “legacy claims” for relief under the $2.2 billion Discrimination Financial Assistance Program. 

The lower court dismissed the lawsuit due to lack of standing, stating that the law requires the USDA to accept applications only from living farmers. The Sixth Circuit panel of judges agreed.

Appeals court says only living farmers can be ‘assisted’ 

The lawsuit’s challenge of the USDA “puts the cart before the horse,” Judge Chad A. Readler wrote in the Sixth Circuit panel’s majority opinion.

Congress, Readler stated, instructed the USDA in the Inflation Reduction Act to provide financial assistance to farmers who experienced discrimination. The panel opined that “assistance” means a form of help for ongoing tasks or needs.

“It goes without saying that a deceased farmer is not engaged in an activity that money can help complete, nor does the farmer suffer any need that money can help relieve,” the opinion states.

What the plaintiffs are searching for, the panel opined, is “compensation” to “make amends” for the past harms faced by deceased farmers.

While individuals can’t file a claim on behalf of a deceased relative, individuals who hold a debt “that resulted from alleged past discrimination” can apply to the program, the opinion states.

Judge Helene N. White, one of the three judges on the panel, disagreed in part with the majority opinion’s definition of “assistance.”

Congress’ statute measured recovery “by the ‘consequences’ flowing from past discrimination, a distinctly compensatory framing,” White wrote in her opinion. But she agreed that the statute’s use of “assistance” is limited to those “capable of being assisted; i.e., that the applicant is alive to receive the payment.”

Squire said the panel’s interpretation of “assistance” is too limited, and the statute’s history must be considered.

“The whole purpose of putting it in (the Inflation Reduction Act) from the outset was Congress’ desire to deal with past discrimination,” Squire said.

Congress first appropriated funding for “socially disadvantaged farmers” in the act in 2021, referring to a farmer’s race. The statute was repealed in 2022 due to its racial definition and replaced with the current law, which bases eligibility for assistance on past discrimination.

“But now the courts have gone the additional step to say, ‘and it must be individuals who are going to farm in the future,’” Squire said. “Well, that wasn’t the way the original statute was conceived …. They’ve come up now with an additional restriction which once again perpetuates past discrimination, and that’s the problem with it.”
BFAA v USDA