Explained: Why Colleges And Universities Across The US Are Moving To Ban Caste Discrimination

The California Faculty Association (CFA) introduced caste criteria to its anti-discrimination standards this month, which was approved by the California State University system's Board of Trustees.

The CFA and CSU's decision came after months of continuous campaigning by Dalit rights groups, who presented evidence to university administrators demonstrating the widespread and severe impact of caste prejudice on college campuses in the United States.

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which disputed on the need for caste discrimination protection as a separate category, slammed the inclusion of caste discrimination protection in the CSU system.

Caste discrimination in American universities

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Evidence presented by Dalit and other minority rights advocates says it is, and an increasing number of American colleges have apparently found it convincing enough to establish policies protecting students and professors against caste discrimination on campus.

Harvard University, for example, was the first Ivy League university to acknowledge caste-based discrimination as a problem when it ratified a four-year contract in December 2021 that included a provision for the addition of caste as a "protected category" for all graduate and undergraduate student workers at the university. Similarly, caste-based discrimination was outlawed on the campus of privately-run Colby College in Maine in October 2021.

Even though caste is not an officially recognised "protected class" under federal or state law in the United States, Brandeis University in Massachusetts took action in November 2019, stating that "the university believes that caste identity is so inextricably intertwined with those legally recognised protected characteristics that discrimination based on one's caste is effectively discrimination based on an amalgamation of legally protected characteristics. Therefore, the university prohibits discrimination and harassment based on caste, effective immediately."

Equality Labs is a significant organisation leading the fight against caste discrimination in American universities. Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the organization's Executive Director, appreciated the latest development in California, adding, "This win is historic."

The Cal State system is one of the largest in the country, and because of the student-led interfaith and inter-caste initiative's hard efforts, we now have 23 new schools joining the civil rights struggle to safeguard caste-oppressed Americans."

Is there a wider impact of caste discrimination in the US?

It appears that America has a broader 'caste problem,' with incidents of alleged or proved discrimination extending far beyond the educational system.

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In June 2020, for example, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Cisco Systems and two of its former executives in Silicon Valley for allegedly discriminating against a Dalit engineer based on his caste.

According to Equality Labs, shortly after this issue was made public, it began to receive identical accusations of caste-based discrimination from 260 U.S. tech workers over the course of three weeks at various tech businesses, including Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Slurs and jokes, bullying, discriminatory hiring procedures, bias in peer reviews, and sexual harassment were among the accusations, according to Ms. Soundararajan.

Following that, a group of 30 female Dalit Indian engineers working for Google, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, and other big corporations claimed they had encountered caste bias in the US tech sector, according to subsequent accounts in the US media.

Why did HAF oppose the move?

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Suhag Shukla, the Executive Director of HAF, said in response to the action by the California State University system, ¡°CFA and CSU leadership need to answer why, in the absence of evidence, due diligence, or consultation with some 600 faculty of Indian or South Asian origin who will be directly implicated by this new policy, they added it when existing policies already offer protection for any complaints of caste discrimination under categories such as national origin or ancestry.¡±

Dalit and minority rights activists have, on the other hand, argued that as long as caste is not recognised as a protected category in discrimination under US federal law, caste discrimination will continue to exist within South Asian communities, even if such communities as a whole are sometimes victims of generalised racism.

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