Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have made California the first U.S. state to outlaw caste-based discrimination.
Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent. Those at the lowest strata of the caste system, known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.
Earlier this year, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. On Sept. 28, Fresno became the second U.S. city and the first in California to prohibit discrimination based on caste by adding caste and indigeneity to its municipal code.
In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”
Here is a fun game: Your job probably has an org chart that lets you see the employee hierarchy. Now, realize that Indian last names almost always denote cast. Understand how to discern cast from names and take a look at your org chart.
I am a white tech worker, so I didn’t think much of cast discrimination since I personally never saw even a hint of it at my job. But then I looked at our org cart and oh boy… I now am firmly in the camp that says cast discrimination should be regulated.
I heard about the bill a few weeks ago on The Daily. Shortly after I was on LinkedIn and noticed that some of the devs from my company and a company that mine contracts with would only list a last initial. It made me wonder if the reason for that was because of caste discrimination.
We had some “prince” or something. He was horrible at his job, lost his temper often. He even yelled “How dare you put your feet up in my presence” once. This was a big company to. He was protected by his fellow caste members. Never fired. He eventually went back home instead because he didn’t like not being treated well in the US. Even those who protected him were glad he left.
“How dare you treat me like mere human?!”
Some people need to be reminded that we all bleed the same color.
I work in AAA games now. We don’t have a lot of Indians.
I wonder if it’s actually worse when names indicate how high someone was born or if it just makes identifying it easier. That said, that’s awful and either way I’d be happy if something was done about it.