USDA diversity training session included 'illegal immigrants' chant, group claims

The U.S. government paid a Chicago consultant hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on diversity training workshops that, according to one watchdog, included an exercise in which employees were told to chant "our forefathers were illegal immigrants." 

Conservative group Judicial Watch made the claim this week as it released a handful of documents pertaining to the program -- and alleged that the sessions ended up enforcing political views more than promoting tolerance. 

"Instead of being diversity-oriented or tolerance-oriented, it's more about adopting a mindset," said Lisette Garcia, a senior investigator with the group. "It seemed to go so far as to encourage illegal immigration." 

Judicial Watch began to investigate the sessions earlier this year after being approached by a tipster at USDA who was "offended" by them, Garcia said. Judicial Watch claims it has identified at least $200,000 spent by the USDA over the last two years on the company Souder, Betances & Associates. 

The USDA later confirmed that amount.   

The tipster, Garcia said, described one session in which the speaker led workers in chanting "our forefathers were illegal immigrants" while pounding on the table and getting others in the room to join in. 

"How does that fit into the USDA mission at all?" she said. "The price tag makes it more egregious." 

It's unclear how much total federal money was spent on these kinds of sessions at USDA and other agencies. Federal contract records show the Department of Defense has also contracted with the company, though it's unclear what that work entailed. The company's website says its clients include an array of federal departments, from Commerce to Energy and Interior, as well as USDA. 

"For over a decade Souder, Betances and Associates has been a leader in the field of diversity training and consulting," the company site says. 

The USDA did not confirm or dispute the anecdote from Judicial Watch about the illegal immigrant chant. However, in a statement to FoxNews.com, a USDA spokesperson stressed that the sessions were meant to foster diversity and were well-received by employees.   

"USDA offers a number of optional workshops and professional development opportunities in order to help employees better serve our customers," the statement said. "The Souder Betances & Associates sessions were designed to foster overall diversity awareness -- not to focus on any specific minority group -- and received positive feedback from employees across the department." 

A representative with Souder, Betances & Associates did not return a request for comment. 

Judicial Watch apparently has received little documentation from the USDA on the program, but it released an email exchange in which a USDA official discusses the "diversity intelligence advantage course" with an official from the Chicago firm. In one email from January, the USDA official asked about when he might be able to attend the course later in the year. 

Another email released by the group showed an analyst at USDA who handles record requests advising other records officers about the Judicial Watch request. The officer said that most would probably issue a "no records denial" but said because of the group's history of lawsuits "I want to at least say a USDA wide search for material was conducted despite ... knowing that most ... agencies will have no records." 

Judicial Watch later wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that the email "reinforced the expectation of agency noncooperation."

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Get Started Playing ShootMania: Elite!

IGN Pro League, Ubisoft, and Nadeo are giving away thousands of ShootMania beta keys in preparation for the $100,000 live Elite tournament at IPL5 at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas!

If you're interested in some competitive play for a chance at some huge prize money, watch the video above to see how to go from not having a beta key to playing Elite and destroying people online!

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Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Review

Chances are, you’ve likely been turned off by a fighting game in the past what with the thousands of combos to memorize, strategies to learn, and teams to experiment with. And most of them don’t particularly care if you are into their particular brand of brawling. Tekken Tag Tournament 2, however, attempts to be different. It wants you to learn how to play it. It wants you to spend countless hours mastering its timing, tooling around with its dozen of characters, and making it your own. There’s a slight problem, though: It doesn’t make any of that terribly easy.

Players new to the Tekken universe will want to make their way directly to the Fight Lab to learn the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 basics. Acting as a tutorial of sorts (and a replacement to the traditional Story Mode), Fight Lab drops you into the role of the Combot, a creation of Violet Industries that can learn any Tekken fighter’s techniques and use them in training exercises. Each level of the Fight Lab mini-campaign is designed to teach the player how to pull off some of the Tag 2-specific fighting maneuvers like Binds or Tag Assaults. What’s more, it does it in a charming and often absurd manner, with levels filled with Power Ranger-looking combatants that toss pizzas and turn your head into a pig. Hell, one of the chapter bosses is a fat Ryu from Street Fighter. Silliness abounds.

Theoretically, a tutorial to teach newcomers how to get their martial arts on is a great idea. Fighting games are constantly struggling to bring new players into the fold, and a step-by-step set of interactive instructions could be a great way to do that. Problem is, Fight Lab teaches via the “trial by fire” method. Can’t regularly figure out the timing of the Bind into Team Assault? Too bad, you’re going to keep attempting it until you do. For those who already have experience with fighters, it’s a solid way to learn a few of Tekken’s intricacies. However, it is too demanding to serve as a proper newbie-friendly experience.

Of course, once you get into the fighting itself, you’ll realize that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is still Tekken. It’s still got all the perfectly solid fighting mechanics that you’ve come to know and love since the series’ inception in 1994. You’ll still be working on your air juggles, your one-two(-three-four-five-six) punches, your precision blocking, and throw breaks. If you’re a seasoned Tekken fan, you certainly will not be disappointed.

The biggest change to the Tekken series is the advent of the Tag Assault system. By bringing in your tagged out teammate while your opponent is in the air, you can lay down ridiculous air juggling combos that seemingly go on for minutes at a time. With dozens of characters playable, the Tag Assault combinations are damn near endless. I’ve got my apprehensions about how well Tag 2 is balanced, but all that will only shake out once it’s being played on a truly competitive level.

Options are plentiful for those who decide to dedicate their fighting time to Tag 2. You’ve got your standard versus modes, your practice mode that allows for recording and uploading videos, and your Survival Mode. The netcode isn’t perfect, as I experienced a few slowdowns here and there, but they were few and far between. Those looking for a lengthy online experience will definitely run into hiccups, but hopefully the more egregious moments will be culled out by future patches.

But perhaps the most fun I had with Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was with the Pair Play mode. Designed for four players, it allows each person to take the role of one character each, to be tagged in and out at their leisure. The end result is a group of folks screaming and shouting and laughing all at once while the party chaos ensues on screen. It’s a mode decidedly not designed for competitive play, but man is it a good time.

Even with an absolutely bonkers-huge roster, fights tend to get a little same-looking. Run into King enough and his weird leopard head becomes rote and slightly boring. That’s where the character customization options come in. Want Marshall Law to sport some hipster glasses? You got it. How about a Samurai haircut for the Russian fighter Dragunov? Done. The cosmetic items largely don’t change the way that fighters do their thing, but the options are great for dedicated players that want to make their favorite characters their own.

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