given the long timeframe of events. Third, the article "implies that discrimination is a pre-1997 problem," but numerous studies through 2008 have documented the persistence of discrimination at USDA. Fraud Case On July 6, 2022 the Department of Justice announced that four defendants have pleaded guilty to defrauding the USDA by soliciting people to file false claims asserting they were discriminated against when they tried to get assistance from USDA for their farming operations. See also List of class action lawsuits New Communities Resignation of Shirley Sherrod References Further reading Valerie Grim, "Between Forty Acres and A Class Action Lawsuit: Black Farmers, Civil Rights, and Protest against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1997–2010", in Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule: African American Landowning Families since Reconstruction, University Press of Florida, 2012, Agricultural economics Race and law in the United States 1999 in United States case law United States class action case law United States Department of Agriculture United States racial discrimination case law