About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

GAO-01-521R 1 (2001-04-12)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptanes0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Accountability * Integrity Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 April 12, 2001 The Honorable Larry Combest Chairman, Committee on Agriculture House of Representatives Subject: U.S. Department of Agriculture: Resolution of Discrimination Complaints Involving Farm Credit and Payment Programs Dear Mr. Chairman: Discrimination complaints by minority farmers-including African-Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians-who were denied benefits under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) farm assistance programs' have been a long- standing issue. Compounding this concern has been USDA's inability to address discrimination complaints through its administrative processes in a timely manner. These issues came to a head in 1997 when a group of African-American farmers consolidated their claims of racial discrimination in farm lending and benefit programs into one class action suit against USDA-Pigford v. Glickman. On April 14, 1999, a federal District Court approved a consent decree between the parties for settling the suit that included a framework for resolving the individual claims. USDA continues to operate its internal administrative process for resolving discrimination complaints that are outside the class action settlement. Concerned about certain aspects of the class action settlement and about USDA's administrative process for resolving program-related discrimination complaints, you asked us to examine (1) the status of claims under the class action settlement and (2) the results of the Department's efforts to resolve discrimination complaints by minority farmers through its administrative processes.2 As requested, in addressing the second objective, we focused on minority farmers' discrimination complaints involving USDA's farm credit and payment programs, which are operated by USDA's 'A program complaint might allege, for example, that a USDA official discriminated against a minority farmer on the basis of race by failing to process a loan application. 2There have also been long-standing concerns about USDA's treatment of minority employees. As requested, however, this report focuses on program-related discrimination complaints and not on employees' discrimination complaints. In US Department ofAgriculture: Problems Continue to Hinder the Timely Processing of Discrimination Complaints (GAO/RCED-99-38, Jan. 29, 1999), we reported on the problems in processing discrimination complaints by both program participants and employees. GAO-01-52 1R Resolving Discrimination Complaints

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most