Agriculture Secretary Glickman's Harvest of Blame

There's blood in the water at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, and the "men in the gray suits" -- lawyers, that is, not sharks -- are circling, poised to make another easy killing.

Last year there was a $375 million settlement by USDA of a class-action lawsuit by black farmers who say they were victims of discrimination by the department and met indifference to their complaints. Never mind that those allegations were all but uninvestigated, as this column reported, because of bureaucratic bumbling: and mismanagement by the department's Office of Civil Rights. As a result of the rollover, the same lawyers now have brought another, almost identical, discrimination claim against USDA -- this time on behalf of American Indian farmers. More than 200 American Indians say that they, too, were denied loans, disaster assistance and other farm aid because of discrimination, and their (by now very rich) lawyers undoubtedly hope for a similarly lamblike capitulation and settlement by the USDA on these claims as well.

None doubt that a few individual cases have merit, but no systemic, departmentwide pattern of discrimination has been proved. Alas, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman seems to have grown fond of doing public mea culpas and has shown no stomach for waging a politically hazardous fight on behalf of the taxpayers. Plus, taking such a stand would have highlighted how badly USDA bureaucrats bungled and mishandled the black-farmer allegations. When a Democratic core constituency is involved, Glickman knows it's easier to do the expedient thing and settle.

Meanwhile, $50,000 settlement payments from the black-farmer lawsuit have been made to 6,000 individuals, with another 11,000 being processed. But that processing has been slowed, as we reported earlier, by fraudulent claims made by people pretending to be farmers. And in another related development, an administrative judge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found no evidence that the USDA systematically discriminated against its black employees (only two individual cases had merit), which may have slowed another class-action lawsuit.

But reportedly, now that the lawyers have drawn blood, the USDA still faces at least five other lawsuits claiming racial or sexual discrimination or harassment, so many more of these political ransom payments by Glickman may be in our future.

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