January 13, 2003

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, DC 20500

An Open Letter Calling Upon President George W. Bush and Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman to Oust USDA’s Top Civil Rights Attorney, Inspect the Office of Inspector General and End USDA Racism NOW!

Dear President Bush and Secretary Veneman;

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, call upon you to take immediate and definitive action to end continuing racism at USDA and to commence fair treatment of all employees and farmers.

In this letter we have outlined in detail some of the most egregious situations within USDA that cry out for immediate response. In addition, we have outlined a number of critical steps that we believe are essential to arriving at a climate of equity at USDA. For many years, we have repeatedly called for action to hold USDA personnel accountable for their failings on racial matters, and make clear to all employees that there are consequences for discriminating. It is this critical issue that we will first address.

We urge you to begin by removing Arlean Leland, the Department’s Associate General Counsel for Civil Rights, for her actions with respect to a noose incident involving a top official of the Department’s Farm Credit program.

Ms. Leland is quoted in the article as admitting that a USDA employee of 29-years who is the senior Farm Services Agency official responsible for farm loan servicing, had a noose in his office and displayed it at an event to welcome an African American secretary to his staff. Instead of condemning the act or taking action against the official, Ms. Leland instead attributed his actions to "very poor judgment," and went on to publicly praise him as a "committed federal servant."

Unnamed USDA officials verified in the same article that the incident occurred and was investigated by the department’s inspector general, who "found no evidence" that the employee, Arthur V. Hall, "engaged in an illegal or discriminatory act."

In view of the focus on race relations in this nation spurred by the recent comments and continuing apologies of Senator Trent Lott, we point out that the Administration itself is now, in December 2002, condoning the actions of people who are not only making statements but committing acts that are racist and discriminatory. We recognize that the noose incident happened a number of years ago. The department’s employees, however, remain keenly aware both of the incident and of the fact that USDA never took action: "no letters, no reprimands, it came out clean," said Hall in a deposition this fall.

In December, while hearing arguments regarding Virginia’s cross burning laws, Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out that lynching was a "reign of terror" across the south, and that the displaying of associated symbols have no purpose but to "cause fear and terrorize."

It is incumbent upon you to take action against your Civil Rights Attorney, who has excused the display of a noose, and in effect, made clear to employees yet again that there are no consequences for their racist actions.

Furthermore, we ask you to review immediately an Office of Inspector General that investigated and found Mr. Hall’s display of a noose "neither illegal or discriminatory". This finding should be reversed immediately, and it should be made clear to all employees at every level of the department that such actions are not tolerated, and those responsible will suffer consequences. In addition, the rulings of the Office with respect to discrimination issues should be immediately and fully reviewed as soon as you establish the office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights as called for in the 2002 Farm Bill.

The Department’s lack of action on this matter is more astounding in view of the fact that Mr. Hall has long managed the very program that has amassed a tragic record of discrimination against minority producers. The acts of discrimination caused by the subordinates of a man who saw nothing wrong with having a noose in his office have resulted in a $700 million liability to U.S. taxpayers.

We urge you, therefore, to hold Mr. Hall and other top officials accountable for their actions that have build a climate of hostility for employees and directly caused thousands of African-American, Hispanic, American-Indian and other producers to unjustly lose land. The farm credit programs of the Department are among those that need new leadership committed to fairness.

As USDA officials dismiss the need for accountability, we continue to hear from minority farmers experiencing ongoing discrimination. They are not receiving the injunctive relief promised in the Pigford V. Glickman lawsuit; not receiving priority consideration for loans, despite the Department’s promises, and are having their applications for disaster payments devastatingly delayed, drawn out or rejected, while those of their neighbors are approved.

For example, the Richmond Times Dispatch article recounted the situation of Mr. Tyn Davis of El Paso County Texas, who had his long standing farm loan called soon after the County Executive Director learned his mother was Mexican. After Mr. Davis made a statement on this situation to the House Agriculture Committee, his cotton program participation was ended. It took the intervention of two members of Congress to restore the benefits. However, the restoration of Mr. Davis’ benefits is not in itself a sufficient response. We call upon you to hold the officials in El Paso County and at the state level accountable for these actions.

The aforementioned USDA national and county staff have failed to do their jobs and should not continue to be employed at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

There are many similar cases in many other counties that deserve your attention. Ms. Leland, as your chief Civil Rights attorney, has worked with other government attorneys against the public interest in fighting the certification and settlement of the Garcia v. Veneman Hispanic farmers class action lawsuit, as well as the Keepseagle v. Veneman, Love V. Veneman and Wise v. Veneman suits involving American Indian and women producers. In addition, there are many employee class action cases, and 1700-1800 employee cases alone that need and deserve immediate resolution.

Instead of fighting against a just resolution of these cases, the government should instead take responsibility for and repair the harm it has caused to farmers and employees. It should then take decisive action to hold accountable those who have been responsible for this discrimination and root out and prevent any future discrimination.

The Department needs a courageous leader charged to do these things. The Farm Bill signed into law in May 2002 created the post of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. It is within the office of Civil Rights, and not within the Office of General Counsel, where the employees Civil Rights attorneys should be housed. We suggest that USDA look to the Department of State as a model, where civil rights matters are handled by Undersecretary Barbara Pope, whose staff includes lawyers

The establishment of this office is long over due. The administration must work closely with the community organizations who represent minority producers to nominate an official to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. We urge you to move forward on this immediately.

The Department also needs to introduce transparency and accountability mechanisms. The long-awaited Minority Farm Registry, a tool to track the status of minority farmland ownership, and assure all minority farmers are reached, has been on the drawing boards since 1997. We urge you to see that this registry is set in place immediately and used to measure progress in maintaining and rebuilding the minority farm land base that has been devastated by decades of injustice and exclusion.

Congress in 2002 adopted new transparency and accountability provisions to ensure fair county committee elections ;to make available to the public data on the participation of minority and women farmers in county committee elections, along with all the farm programs of the department, at the county, state and national level. We call upon you to assure these provisions are implemented immediately and are used to set standards and to measure the performance of individual county and state offices and USDA agencies.

A new Farm Bill has taken effect with new programs to serve producers. At a time when outreach to minority farmers is more essential than ever, the Department has moved the minority farm outreach program for the sixth time. It was split it off from the Office of Outreach that is supposed to coordinate the Department’s Outreach efforts. The Office of Outreach has now been relegated to the Office of Socially Disadvantaged Business Utilization—whose function is working with minority businesses—and which has no experience or relationship to farm programs or services. In fact, the only similarity in function to the Office of Outreach, which serves producers, is that it too serves people of color. As a result of these moves and the low priority given to outreach, no strategic coordination exists among agencies to effectively reach and serve minority farmers, and to measure outreach results objectively.

The Minority Farm Outreach Grants program, now once again in the Cooperative State Research, Extension and Education Service, has not yet expended FY 2002 funds while awaiting the FY 2003 Appropriation. However, as new farm programs take effect, the current grants for minority farm outreach have expired and existing programs are unable to reach the minority farmers at a time there is an urgent their services. By the time grants are made under a pending request for proposals, funds in many programs will have been committed before minority producers learn how to apply.

All of these outreach-related decisions were made without engaging the full constituency the programs are intended to serve. In a letter to Secretary Veneman in October 2002 we requested a meeting to discuss these urgent matters. We urge you to assure this request is addressed affirmatively in the near future.

Many of the organizations and educational institutions listed below have worked for more than two decades to help the Department reach and fairly serve all its constituents. This goal will never be reached so long as the Department continues to tolerate and publicly dismiss the seriousness of racist actions, and fails to work directly with the populations most affected by these actions.

In summary, we call upon you to take decisive action to stop racism and start treating all producers and employees fairly including the following steps:

• Remove officials who have violated the public trust and condoned racist actions.
• Remove employees who have discriminated.
• Assure the farmers and the citizens of the United States that none of the aforementioned employees or offices have received the merit bonuses from the government.
• Establish the office of the Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights immediately, and quickly appoint an official who is serious about correcting ongoing abuses. The Civil Rights Attorneys for the Department should be placed in the Civil Rights office and Independent of the office of General Council.
• Organize qualified teams under the Assistance Secretary for Civil Rights to settle all class complaints immediately.
• Resolve all outstanding employee complaints, both formal and informal, swiftly, using mediation without the involvement of managers who deny their actions.
• Get serious about implementing an effective and coordinated outreach program for minority farmers, in consultation with the groups who represent these farmers.
• Release swiftly the FY 2002 funding for Minority Farm Outreach programs, and respond to the letter we and many other minority farm organizations and institutions sent to you last month on the urgency of this matter.
• Establish the long-awaited minority farm registry, and implement the transparency and accountability mechanisms adopted in the recent farm bill.
• Publish information to tell minority farmers how they can access the new direct loan money that you have announced is available to them.

We thank you for your consideration of these important matters, and commit to working with you to assure their swift resolution.

Sincerely,

Abeyta Ranches, Antonito, CO
American Federation of Government Employees (AFL-CIO) Washington, DC
American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3354, St. Louis, MO
Agricultural Missions, Inc. New York, New York
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, AL
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, AK
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, CA
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, DE
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, FL
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, GA
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, IA
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, KA
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, LA
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, MD
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, MI
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, NC
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, OK
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, SC
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, TN
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, TX
Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, VA
Border Agricultural Workers Project, El Paso, TX
C.A.S.A. del Llano (Communities Approaching Sustainable Agriculture), Hereford, TX
Center for Ministry in Small Churches, Sewanee, TN
Center for Rural Affairs, Walthill, NE
Church Women United in New York State, Elmira, NY
Concerned Citizens of Tillery, NC
Corporate Agribusiness Research Project, Everett, Washington
Dona Ana and El Paso County Agriculture Assistance, Las Cruces, NM and El Paso, TX
El Comité de Apoyo a Los Trabajadores Agricolas, Glassboro, NJ & Kennett Square, PA
Equal Employment Opportunity Network (EEON), Bel Air MD
Farmers Cooperative/Community Improvement Association, SC
Farmworker Association of Florida, Apopka, FL
Family Farm Defenders, Madison, WI
Federal Employees Against Discrimination, Inc., Sterling, VA
Federal Hispanic Law Enforcement Officers Association, Inc., Yuma, Arizona
Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund
First Nations Development Institute, Fredricksburg, VA
Fort Berthold Community College, New Town, ND
Georgia Association of Cooperatives
Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington
Greene County Democrat, Eutaw, AL
Growing Power, Milwaukee, WI, Homer, AK
Hill Connections, Chaseburg, WI
Hispanic Farmers Association, El Paso, TX
Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of America, Las Cruces, NM
Hispanic Organizations Leadership Alliance, Takoma Park, MD
H.O.M.E. (Homeworkers Organized for More Employment), Orland, ME
Housing Assistance Council, Washington, DC
The Land Loss Fund, Tillery, NC
Land Loss Prevention Project, Durham, NC
Markham Center, Montpelier, VT
Mid-Eastern Farmers Cooperative, SC
Minnesota Food Association, St. Paul, MN
Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Columbia, MO
Montanans Organized for Public Service, Lambert, MT
NAACP Federal Sector Taskforce
National Black Farmers Association, VA
National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, Pine Bush, NY
National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Des Moines, IA
National Council of La Raza, Washington, DC
National Family Farm Coalition, Washington, DC
National Organization of Professional Hispanic NRCS Employees
North American Farm Alliance, Windsor, OH
Northeast Organic Farming Assoc. of New York
Office for Farmworker Ministry, Apopka, FL
Peacework Organic Farm, Newark, NY
The Peoples Cooperative
PLBA Housing Development Corporation, Gainesville, AL
PolicyLink, Oakland, CA
Rural Advancement Fund, Orangeburg, SC
Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural
Rural Community Development Resources, Yakima, WA
Rural Development Leadership Network, New York, NY
Rural Vermont, Montpelier, VT
Sea Island Small Farmers Cooperative, SC
Sin Fronteras Organizing Project, El Paso, TX
Small Farmers Outreach and Technical Assistance Program, AL A&M University, Normal, AL
Social Concerns Office – Diocese of Jefferson City, MO
Solidarity Committee of the Capitol District, Albany, NY
South Carolina Association of Farmers and Landowerners
Southern Rural Development Initiative
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees
USDA Coalition of Minority Employees Legal Defense and Education Fund
Virginia Organizing Project, Charlottesville, VA
Western Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
Winlock Meadows Farm, Winlock WA

Employee and Farmer Classes
Lupe Garcia, lead agent Garcia v. Veneman
George Keepseagle, lead agent, Keepseagle v. Veneman
Rosemary Love, lead agent Love v. Veneman
Joe Sedillo, lead agent Sedillo v. Veneman
Allen Spencer, lead agent Spencer, et al., v. Veneman
Tina Williams, lead agent Williams, et al., v. Veneman
Bernard Benton, lead Agent, Reed v. Veneman
Arun Basu, lead Agent, Basu v. Veneman

Individuals
Joyce Walker, Altheimer, AK
Eda I. Negron-Oliver, Active member of AFGE LOCAL 2052*
Aniceta Santacruz Spencer, Sonora, CA
Mon S. Yee, San Dima, CA, past president of Asian Pacific Islander Organization*
Howard L. Wallace, President & CEO Equal Employment Opportunity Network*
Earl W. Ford, President, Vancouver Branch NAACP #1139*
Steve Wing, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of NC*
Mary A. Theus, Raytown, MO
Leanne Boyce, People First of Tennessee, Inc*
Gatha Logan, President, People First of Tenneessee, Inc*
Jacqueline Fralley, Labor Heritage Foundation*
Max Glenn, retired, OR
Cleo Daniels, San Bernardino, CA, U.S. Forest Service*
Verlyn D. Jenkins, New Orleans, LA, USDA/OCFO/National Finance Center*
Staci Jackson-Jones, USDA, Forest Service*
Luella M. Dickerson (formerly Pendergraph), P&BA*
Ransom Hughes, USDA Forest Service*
Debra Ann Martin, Gillett, AK
Penny Kriesch, USDA APHIS PPQ*
Martha Pollard-Batts, USDA Forest Service*, Atlanta, GA
Altheria Myers, Agriculture Research Service, USDA*
Barnedia Talley,Fredericksburg, VA

* for identification purposes only

cc: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle