PLF and FAIR demand changes to Seattle’s race-based garden program

Seattle, Washington; July 24, 2026: Pacific Legal Foundation and public interest group Fair For All sent a letter to the City of Seattle on July 20 challenging a gardening program that sorts applicants by race and requires them to affirm an ideological statement before receiving a plot. The letter notified the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods that the P-Patch Community Gardening Program’s practices likely violate the Constitution.

“The government cannot decide who gets a garden plot based on skin color, and it cannot force people to agree with its views as the price of a plot,” said Andrew Quinio, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. “Seattle must run its community gardening program without discriminating against applicants or dictating what they must say.”

P-Patch moves applicants who identify as black or African American, Indigenous or Native, and Latinx or Hispanic to the front of its waitlist, which can otherwise run up to four years. The City also requires gardeners to agree to an “Anti-Racist” statement that commits them to “centering” people based on race before they can claim a plot.

The letter asks the City of Seattle to confirm by August 20, 2026, whether it will eliminate the race-based priority list and the mandatory statement to bring its program into compliance with the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and free speech. Pacific Legal Foundation and Fair For All will evaluate further legal action depending on the City’s response.