(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Justice won’t defend a group of Biden-era Department of Agriculture aid programs that were challenged by a Wisconsin farmer.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a June lawsuit on behalf of Chilton’s Adam Faust claiming the USDA had continued programs that discriminated against farmers based on race and sex.
The USDA wrote in a filing that it had “determined that the [USDA] programs at issue in this case are unconstitutional to the extent they include preferences based on race and sex.”
Faust previously won a 2021 victory against the Biden administration for race discrimination in the Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan with the help of WILL.
The June lawsuit claimed that discriminated had continued in the USDA’s Daily Margin Coverage Program, Loan Guarantee Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
The USDA asked for a 60-day stay as it looks to adjust the programs in question, citing a February statement on a previous challenge to the programs that said “USDA has independently determined that it will no longer employ the race- and sex-based ‘socially disadvantaged’ designation to provide increased benefits based on race and sex in the programs at issue in this case.”
WILL agreed to the 60-day stay in the litigation until Oct. 21.
“This lawsuit served as a much-needed reminder to the USDA that President Trump has ordered the end to all federal DEI programs,” WILL Deputy Legal Counsel Dan Lennington said in a statement. “There’s more work to do be done, but today’s victory gives us a clear path to do even more in the name of equality.”
