(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty reached a settlement to end the race- and sex-based criteria in three grant programs from the United States Department of Agriculture following WILL’s June 2025 lawsuit against the USDA.
The USDA also agreed to pay attorney fees to WILL as part of the settlement.
The lawsuit was filed regarding the USDA’s Loan Guarantee Program, Dairy Margin Coverage Fee and its EQIP Grant Program on behalf of Chilton farmer Adam Faust.
“The Trump Administration inherited dozens of discriminatory programs that supported certain farmers over others based on race and sex,” WILL Managing Vice President and Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington said in a statement. “Those shameful days are now behind us. We appreciate the USDA’s hard work in reforming important programs for American farmers.”
The USDA said in September 2025 that it would not defend the policies related to the Biden-era USDA programs, saying that it “determined that the [USDA] programs at issue in this case are unconstitutional to the extent they include preferences based on race and sex.”
Faust also won a 2021 lawsuit against the Biden administration for race discrimination in the Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan with the help of WILL.
The lawsuit claimed that 2 million white male American farmers, accounting for 60% of all farmers, were harmed by discriminatory policies in the USDA programs.
