Lawsuit Filed Against Biden’s American Rescue Plan for Discriminating Against White Farmers

A Chilton, Wisconsin dairy farmer has joined four other plaintiffs in a suit filed last week against the Secretary of Agriculture and the Administrator of the Farm Services Agency alleging Biden’s COVID-19 loan forgiveness program illegally discriminates against them because it excludes them on race.

Adam Faust, who owns a 140 Holstein dairy farm and is physically disabled himself, alleges Biden’s COVID relief program loan forgiveness program, or the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), discriminates against him because of his skin color.

“It was just out and out racist, and I really don’t think that there should be racism allowed in the federal government at any level,” Faust told Fox 11 News.

Adam Faust poses for a photo on his dairy farm in Calumet County, Wisconsin WLUK/Monique Lopez.

The Plaintiffs include farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Ohio, all of who have direct loans with the Farm Service Agency or USDA-backed loans.

Attorneys for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, who filed the suit, says the $4 billion program in the stimulus plan forgives loans for farmers and ranchers who are black, native American, Hispanic or Asian—but excludes those who are white.

The lawsuit asserts that the United States Constitution “forbids” discrimination by the federal government “against any citizen because of his race.”

The two agency heads named in the suit assert the purpose of the ARPA program is to remedy “systemic racism” within the USDA and more broadly “across agriculture,” but the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty says such broad goals do not override the constitutional ban on race discrimination.

Counsel also states in its suit that the Supreme Court has “rejected the interest in remedying societal discrimination because it had no logical stopping point (Fisher v. Univ. of Texas at Austin, 570 U.S. 297, 318 (2013)) and rejects the idea that the government’s approach to cure “systemic racism” by employing race discrimination is nonsensical.

On April 12, the USDA updated its website to provide further information about the payments under Section 1005 of ARPA, confirming that only certain farmers will be eligible based on race:

“Eligible borrowers include those who identify as one or more of the following: Black/African American, American Indian, Alaskan native, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American, or Pacific Islander.”

Deputy counsel Daniel Lennington told Fox 11, “That’s literally what the law [ARPA] says. If you’re not white, you get the benefit. If you’re white, you do not get the benefit.”

The US Constitution is clear that discrimination by race is illegal, so if I was Biden, I wouldn’t bet the farm that the Court will uphold this abominable racist program.