JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A federal judge in Jacksonville has frozen an aid program for minority farmers that was part of the American Rescue Plan, saying the need for it is “anything but evident.”
A preliminary injunction issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard applies nationwide, blocking the U.S. Department of Agriculture from enacting a program that would have paid off farm debts for farmers — as long as they weren’t white.
A white farmer from Hamilton County, Scott Wynn, sued last month, saying he shouldn’t be excluded from aid solely because of his race.
The injunction applies until the case is decided.
The judge’s 49-page order referenced “well-documented historic discrimination” that has hampered many minority farmers.
But it also detailed restrictions past cases have established for race-based policies and questioned steps in the American Rescue Plan to reconcile the two.
“On the record before the Court, it appears that … Congress moved with great speed to address the history of discrimination, but did not move with great care,” the judge wrote.
She said the debt-relief program “appears to fall well short of the delicate balance accomplished when a legislative enactment employs race in a narrowly tailored manner to address a specific compelling governmental interest.”
Wynn’s suit is one of at least seven court cases nationwide over the estimated $4 billion program, called Section 1005 for its placement within the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan.
Although a judge in Wisconsin had issued a temporary restraining order while an injunction was sought, Howard’s ruling was the first to enjoin government action “until further order from the court.”
Wynn’s supporters cast the ruling as a victory for fair treatment within the law.
“Today’s injunction enforces a basic foundation of our Constitution: The government can’t treat people unequally based on immutable characteristics like race,” said Wen Fa, Wynn’s attorney from the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation.
“The government can’t allow some people to take part in federal programs while denying others based solely on the color of their skin,” Fa said in written remarks.
The debt-relief effort had been framed as a step to help “socially disadvantaged” farmers — farmers who are Black, American Indian, Alaska native, Hispanic or Asian/Pacific Islander — who had faced financial challenges because of past USDA discrimination and disruptions caused by the pandemic.
It offered payments up to 120 percent of the amount of certain farm debts that disadvantaged farmers were carrying.
White farmers were not eligible to receive the payments.
A government attorney argued last week to Howard that the approach was legally justified because Congress had for decades tried race-neutral steps to resolve the effects of discrimination without being able to eliminate the imbalance felt by minority farmers who disproportionately work small patches of land.
Howard said in her ruling the government hadn’t made a convincing initial case that race-based rules were needed or that Section 1005’s rules would solve the problem.
“Although the government argues that Section 1005 is narrowly tailored to reach small farmers or farmers on the brink of foreclosure, it is not,” Howard wrote.
“Regardless of farm size, a… [minority farmer] receives up to 120 percent debt relief. And regardless of whether a …[farmer] is having the most profitable year ever and not remotely in danger of foreclosure, that [farmer] receives up to 120 percent debt relief. Yet a small white farmer who is on the brink of foreclosure can do nothing to qualify for debt relief. Race or ethnicity is the sole, inflexible factor that determines the availability of relief provided by the government under Section 1005.”
The judge said there was some basis for the program’s efforts, but that race-based policies require more care than seemed to have gone into Section 1005.
“The constitutional right to equal protection guarantees that racial classifications will be permitted only with ‘the most exact connection between the justification and classification,’” Howard wrote. “... The evidence regarding Section 1005’s enactment presents some connection between the justification and the race-based relief but falls short of presenting an ‘exact connection.’”
Saying she didn't want the injunction to hang over the USDA a long time, Howard told lawyers to meet and present a plan by Tuesday for getting Wynn's case completely argued and decided quickly.
Click here to read more from the Florida Times-Union.
