Before I was sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, recent folks who had the job—both Republican and Democratic—suggested that it was important that I set a new, proactive course to move past USDA’s checkered and unfortunate history with regards to civil rights.

So I made it a priority for the Department to enter a new era for civil rights—to ensure that all our customers get a fair shake, no matter their race, color, sex, or age—and instituted a comprehensive effort to help get us there:

• We reached historic resolutions to past cases of discrimination brought against USDA by African Americans, Latinos and women farmers and ranchers.
• We announced the settlement of the long-standing Keepseagle v. Vilsack case brought by Native American farmers. In April 2011, the settlement was approved by the court as being fair and just and we are moving forward to resolve those claims and implement the settlement.
• We conducted a review of past complaints against the Department that were largely ignored in the previous decade and we are asking Congress to help work with us to find a route to resolve those with merit.
• We launched a Department-wide ‘cultural transformation’ to create a workforce that represents the diversity of America, and support them in their efforts to serve all of the American people. That has meant improving employee training and outreach efforts, as well as a large-scale plan to recruit, retain and promote employees who will lead the Department as a premier service-provider in the 21st century.

And our work has produced real results. Last year, we had the lowest number of program complaints filed against the Farm Service Agency since USDA began keeping track, as well as the lowest number of internal employment complaints ever filed against the Department.

This week, the Department took another step forward to write a new chapter for civil rights. In April 2009, I asked for an independent assessment of USDA’s program delivery. And we have just received an exhaustive Civil Rights Assessment that provides recommendations to help USDA improve field-based service delivery to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. It also acknowledged some areas where we have been successful—such as in our work to reach minority and other disadvantaged groups in our housing programs.

Of the more than 200 recommendations contained in the report, a significant number have already been addressed by our efforts. We are also taking the others seriously. I created an internal working group of both career and politically appointed employees to review, analyze and implement key recommendations so this Assessment acts as an effective roadmap to make the Department a more diverse, inclusive, and high-performance organization.

The recommendations, of course, cover a large range of suggestions. Some of them can be implemented administratively, or through policy or statutory changes—others will require the cooperation of Congress and new legislation. But our continued process to embrace a new era for the Department will make a difference for the American people whose lives we strive to improve each day.

USDA’s work encompasses much more than our efforts for America’s farmers and ranchers. Our nutrition assistance programs serve 1 in 4 Americans, 170 million people visit our National Forests each year, and tens of millions of rural Americans benefit from our work to strengthen their communities. Precisely because we touch the lives and livelihoods of so many, we must build a Department that helps all people pursue their dreams. But we can only do this if we rebuild faith and trust in a government that is open, transparent, inclusive, responsive and accessible.

From the beginning of his time in office, President Obama has asked me—and the federal government as a whole—to pursue those very goals. To re-connect Americans to their government and build greater confidence in the work we do.

I pledge to continue USDA’s progress so that fairness and inclusion serve as the foundation of everything we do at the Department, and that each employee and customer is treated fairly and equitably, with dignity and respect. The American people deserve no less.

Tom Vilsack is the United States Secretary of Agriculture and the former Governor of the state of Iowa.

Michael Anderson is leader of the Euahlayi People, a 3,000 strong Aboriginal Nation and convener of the New Way Sovereignty Summit on the status and place of Aboriginal peoples in contemporary Australia and beyond.

In a statement released after this year’s Summit, Anderson issued a warning about the May 16 side event to the 10th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), on the ‘doctrine of discovery’: “we must be assured that this is not another move by the United Nations and their member states to formulate a strategy to interfere with Aboriginal moves to have this matter truly investigated by legal enquiry.”

The target of Anderson’s concern is the 500-year-old claim that Christian empires had a divine right to appropriate whatever lands they ‘discovered,’ no matter that the lands were in the possession of Indigenous nations and peoples. Invader governments used the doctrine, promulgated by 15th century popes, to justify land claims in areas now known as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and elsewhere in the world.

The UNPFII decision to focus on this issue is a major development, based on decades of inquiry in and out of the U.N. Vine Deloria, Jr., (Standing Rock Dakota) wrote about the doctrine in the late 1960s. In the late 1980s, Tupac Enrique Acosta sent a letter to the Vatican challenging the doctrine. In 1992, Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) and Birgil Kills Straight (Oglala Lakota), of the Indigenous Law Institute (ILI), called for revocation of the “Inter Caetera” papal bull that embodied and advanced the doctrine.

Anderson and the New Way Sovereignty Summit are allies in this effort; but are cautious about the UN: “We must be diligent and constantly on alert to moves by the invader society leaders because they need to be re-assured that their position is maintained for the sake of a stable society that they rule over….” Anderson added, “The leaders of the dominant society are beginning to panic and make all the moves to pretend that they care and seek to correct the wrongs.”

In recent years, non-indigenous critics have allied themselves with the ILI, Onondaga Faith Keeper Oren Lyons, and other indigenous voices to challenge the doctrine. The Episcopal Church renounced the doctrine at its 2009 General Convention; National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald called the doctrine “a corrupting idea … that distorts humanity, distorts peoples’ ability to see.” There’s even a special Doctrine of Discovery website for a study group of Episcopalians.

Newcomb has continued to contribute scholarship to the effort. His book, “Pagans in the Promised Land,” is a “decoding” of the doctrine, tracing the Old Testament narrative of “chosen people and the promised land” through the papal bulls to the 1823 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Johnson v. McIntosh.

The impetus to move the UNPFII to focus on the doctrine was the “Preliminary study of the impact on indigenous peoples of the international legal construct known as the Doctrine of Discovery” (E/C.19/2010/13), submitted by Tonya Gonnella-Frichner (Onondaga Nation), Founder and President of the American Indian Law Alliance and then a member of UNPFII for North America, in her capacity as Special Rapporteur to the 9th Session. The study finds that the Doctrine of Discovery, and the “framework of dominance” of which it is a part, has “been institutionalized in law and policy, on national and international levels, and lies at the root of the violations of indigenous peoples’ human rights, both individual and collective. This has resulted in State claims to and the mass appropriation of the lands, territories and resources of indigenous peoples.”

Michael Anderson’s warning is well taken: it appears that some U.N. member states are concerned in the face of the significance of the issues now before them. In fact, an effort has already begun pressure to defuse the challenge—proposing that the doctrine of discovery be resolved by a “doctrine of reconciliation,” a notion that can be traced to the Inquisition. As one commentator has pointed out, reconciliation is “a process of denial, justification, [and] excuse.” In the Inquisition it was used to quell rebelliousness.

The skill and scholarship arrayed in the May 16 side session are a sign of continuing deep and persistent challenge from indigenous nations and peoples around the world. Two key elements of that challenge now coming from the ILI are the need for “recovery from discovery” and to “end the domination.” The UNPFII will need all the muscle it can get to stand firm in the face of behind-the-scenes maneuvers to obscure or obstruct the challenge.

Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968 and served as staff attorney in Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo Legal Services from 1968 to 1970. From 1970 to 2002, he taught Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He currently a consulting attorney on indigenous issues.