According to the 13-page complaint, WILL alleges that the DEI policies at issue unconstitutionally deny financial assistance to farmers based on race and sex.

For example, the Loan Guarantee Program guarantees farm loans for up to 95% against possible financial loss, allowing eligible farmers to borrow more money at a lower interest rate. Women and racial minorities may receive a higher guarantee — as much as 95% of the outstanding principal — due to persisting DEI policies, while white males may only get a guarantee of 90% of a loan’s value under the standard plan. A lower guarantee means higher interest rates and loan costs and lower overall loan amounts, WILL explains.

Faust, a double amputee who milks 70 Holstein cows and farms 200 acres to feed his livestock, refinanced his dairy farm in August 2024 using the USDA’s guaranteed loan program to obtain an $890,000 loan. He paid the required 1.5% of the loan cost, amounting to $12,015, but he was only granted a 90% guarantee, according to WILL.

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The Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) Program, which is designed to protect dairy farms from fluctuations in milk prices, pays producers when the margin between the price of milk and the average feed cost falls below a certain coverage level. To participate in the program, USDA requires enrollees to pay an annual $100 administrative fee. However, all so-called “socially disadvantaged farmers” are exempt from paying this fee, WILL says, yet the USDA charges white male farmers. USDA regulations currently define the “socially disadvantaged” to mean ethnic minorities and female farmers.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which incentivizes farmers to participate in conservation efforts, may award up to 90% of project costs associated with planning, design, materials, equipment, installation, labor, management, maintenance, and training to “socially disadvantaged farmers.”

White males, meanwhile, are only entitled to a 75% reimbursement rate, WILL says, including Faust, who has entered a contract with an engineering firm to install a manure storage system on his farm. Faust intends to apply for financial assistance from EQIP, according to WILL, but is not eligible for the same amount of aid as “group[s] whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudices.”

In an April letter threatening litigation, WILL had warned Rollins about the lingering racial and sex-specific preferences found within these three USDA programs, giving her 60 days to make reforms. A month later, in support of WILL’s demands, all five Republican members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation wrote a letter calling on the USDA to investigate and end the racially discriminatory practices.

“We’ve been patient, but equality cannot wait,” WILL deputy legal counsel Dan Lennington said in an announcement of this week’s legal action following “no meaningful response” from Rollins. “While President Trump has been perfectly clear that racial discrimination has no place in his Administration, USDA remains a notable hold out.”

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“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” WILL’s client, Faust, added. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from the USDA.”

WILL is seeking a judgment declaring the USDA policies unconstitutional and an injunction blocking their continued implementation.

Rollins had issued a Day One directive rescinding all of her department’s DEI programs and announcing that the USDA is instead prioritizing equality, meritocracy, and color-blind policies. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the USDA has been comprehensively reviewing DEI programming in an effort to reverse the “woke priorities of the Biden administration,” the agency said in a “First 100 Days” press release.

“We appreciate the Trump Administration’s strong stance against DEI, but Secretary Rollins must take the discrimination at USDA much more seriously,” Lennington told the Washington Examiner prior to the filing in federal court. He noted that Rollins received fair warning from WILL and Congress.

In a statement previously shared with the Washington Examiner, a USDA spokesperson said, “Over the last four years, the Biden administration left USDA in complete disarray and disfunction and that’s why farmers were being left behind.”

“Unlike the Biden Administration, under President Trump, USDA does not discriminate and single out individual farmers based on race, sex, or political orientation,” the spokesperson said. “Secretary Rollins is working to reorient the department to be more effective at serving the American people and put farmers first.”

A provision of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Biden’s signature COVID-19 stimulus legislation, offered loan relief based on racial classifications. Farmers and ranchers must be black, Native American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, an Alaskan native, or Pacific Islander in order to participate, the stipulations said.

In a landmark 2021 racial equality case, Faust was the first farmer to successfully sue the Biden administration over the farmer loan forgiveness program, which WILL argued excluded white farmers from accessing billions in relief-related benefits allocated on the basis of race.

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Although he won that battle with the Biden administration, WILL says Faust is still subject to a number of prejudiced policies, including the three named in Monday’s lawsuit, that continue to discriminate against him and 2 million other white male farmers nationwide.

WILL’s policy tracker, which monitors the Trump administration’s progress with dismantling DEI programs across the federal government, has identified at least two dozen racially selective initiatives in effect at the USDA.

The USDA was contacted for comment on WILL’s legal challenge.