Saturday, July 24, 2010
USDA's Shirley Sherrod: I Helped White Farmer - CBS Evening News - CBS News
(CBS) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack defended his decision Tuesday to fire a black official who was accused of racial discrimination against a white farmer.
The ousted official denies the allegation and so does the farmer, CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford reports.
The allegations started with a speech by an Agriculture Department official describing her attitude 24 years ago toward a white farmer.
"Here I was, faced with having to help a white person save their land, so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do," the official, Shirley Sherrod, said.
That comment, in a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, lit up the blogosphere after a conservative website this week aired it and suggested there was reverse racism in the administration.
Vilsack reacted swiftly. He said Tuesday the USDA has "zero tolerance for discrimination" and fired Sherrod for those comments.
"When I saw the statements and the context of the statements, I determined that it would make it difficult for her to do her job as a rural development director," Vilsack said.
But, as with so many issues of race, there is a lot more to this story.
(CBS) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack defended his decision Tuesday to fire a black official who was accused of racial discrimination against a white farmer.
The ousted official denies the allegation and so does the farmer, CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford reports.
The allegations started with a speech by an Agriculture Department official describing her attitude 24 years ago toward a white farmer.
"Here I was, faced with having to help a white person save their land, so I didn't give him the full force of what I could do," the official, Shirley Sherrod, said.
That comment, in a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, lit up the blogosphere after a conservative website this week aired it and suggested there was reverse racism in the administration.
Vilsack reacted swiftly. He said Tuesday the USDA has "zero tolerance for discrimination" and fired Sherrod for those comments.
"When I saw the statements and the context of the statements, I determined that it would make it difficult for her to do her job as a rural development director," Vilsack said.
But, as with so many issues of race, there is a lot more to this story.