The New York Times Monday profiled several black farmers who were promised debt relief by the Biden administration but now “fear foreclosure” after courts blocked the disbursement of relief.

The American Rescue Plan, passed in 2021 and sold as a coronavirus-relief package, authorized $4 billion of debt relief exclusively for black and “socially disadvantaged” farmers. Part of the Biden administration’s “equity” agenda, the policy was intended to redress past discrimination in the agriculture industry.

White farmers and other interested parties challenged the provision in court, arguing the federal government cannot withhold a benefit from white candidates that it affords to minority candidates on the basis of race. Those plaintiffs have thus far prevailed because, for the time being, we have a 14th Amendment with an Equal Protection Clause.

The black farmers and their representatives argue that the Biden administration is not defending the race-based relief “forcefully enough in court out of fear that a legal defeat could undermine other policies that are predicated on race.”

If it were interested in the plight of struggling farmers, the Biden administration could have provided relief to farmers with demonstrated economic need regardless of skin color. Given the oft-cited history of discrimination within the USDA and the discriminatory allocation of public lands under the Homestead Acts, many black farmers would presumably qualify on economic grounds.

A race-neutral policy, in addition to being compatible with the 14th Amendment, would avoid giving relief to well-off black farmers, who don’t need it, and denying it to poor white farmers, who do. If the insight we’re supposed to glean from a critical analysis of American history is that a disproportionate number of poor farmers are black, a race-neutral relief package conditioned on economic need would have the desired distributional effects.

If the goal is to help struggling farmers, a race-neutral relief package does that. If the goal is revenge, that’s another matter entirely.