Rice--who has received financial and other support from rightwingers such as Robert Bork and Abigail Thernstrom--argues that the election violates equal protection standards because Native Hawaiian is a "racial category," not a sovereign one. Although Rice has lost his argument twice in lower courts, the fate of Hawaiian sovereignty is now in the hands of the High Court. If the Court decides that Hawaiians are a "racial" group and the Hawaiian-only election is viewed as another example of "racial preferences," rather than a sovereignty struggle to reclaim land and restore self-governance, Yamamoto believes OHA and other Native Hawaiian government programs will likely fall.
Rehnquist, who led the "Dixie" sing-along at the 4th Circuit Judicial Conference in Hot Springs, VA, had no comment. Others who attended the sing-along rose to his defense, claiming "Dixie" is "Americana" appropriate for the mostly southern gathering. John Crump, executive director of the NBA, points out that Rehnquist's action heaps insult onto injury: the 4th Circuit is the only federal jurisdiction without an African American judge on its court of appeals. "If they follow the words of `Dixie,' it'll be like this forever," he said.
But many farmers, including Timothy Pigford whose complaint led to Pigford v. Glickman, feel that the settlement is inadequate. Although the settlement awards most claimants tax-free cash payments of $50,000 and waives outstanding debts to the USDA, which average $75,000-100,000, "there is no meaningful relief that talks about systemic change in the department," says Stephon Bowens, lawyer for some of the dissenting farmers.
For decades, black farmers have complained that they were effectively shut out of loan programs, disaster assistance, and other USDA aid, as well as subject to racial slurs and unequal treatment by Agriculture Department workers. Many of the farmers in the suit say these racist policies have contributed to the current crisis in black farming, which has blacks abandoning farming at three times the rate of whites. Today, fewer than 20,000 blacks farm in the U.S. today, down from nearly 1 million in 1920.
Equally absurd is the United Nations Development Program's 1997 Human Development Report, which portrays only 4.1 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago as poor. Meanwhile, in the U.S. and Canada-where poverty rates at least assume an adequate diet-poverty is a soaring 13.7 an 17.8 percent, respectively.
