Johnson v. Department of Agriculture

KELLY, Circuit Judge.

This appeal follows the district court’s dismissal of Curtis Johnson’s statutory and constitutional claims against the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Secretary of Agriculture, and various Department of Agriculture employees. Although we agree with some of the district court’s bases for dismissal, we disagree that taking advantage of the USDA’s internal anti-discrimination complaint procedures can serve as a bar to later bringing federal-law claims in court, or that the existence of those procedures insulates the USDA from constitutional claims. We therefore affirm…