Native American Suit Against USDA Ongoing
|  Video
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| Retha Colclasure |
| 9/10/2009 |
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| There are several necessary tools in a farming or ranching operation. Equipment is only one of them. Credit is another. And many Native American farmers and ranchers say the USDA unlawfully denied them credit and other services because of their race. Native Americans filed suit against the USDA 10 years ago, saying the agency unlawfully denied them loans and services because of their race. Today, many of them got together at the Tribal Summit today to discuss the Keepseagle lawsuit. They hope that bringing more attention to the case will urge the new President and his administration to take action to resolve it. Some call the Keepseagle lawsuit one of the most important civil rights cases of this generation. "It`s brought on behalf of a population that are the nations first farmers and ranchers in the country, and yet USDA has a history of telling them they`re lousy farmers," says Joseph Sellers, the lead attorney on the case. Native American farmers and ranchers say the agency has denied them half of the loan dollars they should have been entitled to. "Credit is a tool of agriculture, and if you don`t have credit available to you, you`re not going to have any operation on the size or scale compared to other commercial operations in the state," says Claryca Mandan, the lead plaintiff in the case. Mandan is one of five farmers filed who suit against the USDA on Thanksgiving Day, 1999. Only three of them are still alive. And they`re still waiting for something to be thankful for. "We want the department to change the way it does business with Native Americans," Mandan says. She says as a rancher, she was denied loans from the USDA, was forced to sell off her livestock, and had to take a non-farm job just to keep going. And, the lawsuit says, the USDA knew about the discrimination. "Then Secretary Glickman conducted its on study of loan operations and issued a report called CRAT that pretty much admitted it failed to provide adequate services to Native Americans and other minorities," Sellers says. He says Native Americans were shorted on loans by $3 billion. So far, the case has dragged on through three presidential administrations and five secretaries of agriculture. But the lawyers in the case say they hope they can set it for trial soon. We`ve made phone calls to the USDA over the past two days seeking comment, but no one has returned our calls. |
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