Gov. Gavin Newsom has a decision to make. A bill passed out of the California legislature awaits his signature, banning so-called “caste” discrimination.
The bill’s backers allege rampant, systemic bigotry against Indian Americans – by fellow Indian Americans. By signing this bill, Newsom risks alienating millions of Indian Americans, a powerful political constituency and, worse, endorsing an insidious slander.
The governor should veto the bill – on principle and politics.
The latest saga began in 2020 when the California Civil Rights Department, the state’s anti-discrimination agency, filed a complaint against Cisco Systems and two of its senior engineers alleging employment discrimination against an employee.
The two engineers – whose families practice Hinduism – allegedly discriminated against the complaining employee, only identified as “John Doe,” due to his lower caste status as the “lone Dalit” or “untouchable” in a Cisco startup. A media pile-on ensued.
The California Civil Rights Department claimed that the Cisco startup’s CEO and John Doe’s main manager – Sundar Iyer – is Hindu and discriminated against him for his caste and defined caste as a “strict Hindu social and religious hierarchy,” despite knowing that Iyer self-declared as an atheist decades ago, publicly rejecting the caste system.
The engineering unit was not “all Indian” as the agency alleged, and John Doe was not the “lone Dalit” on the team. Another team manager was also Dalit and named to a top leadership post before any internal complaints of caste discrimination. He was also offered every top leadership position in the startup, including the job as the startup’s CEO.
Facts be damned. After stoking a three-year media frenzy, the California Civil Rights Department withdrew its claims against the two engineers in April, but it is still pressing its case against deep-pocketed Cisco.
Now the bill on the governor’s desk, Senate Bill 403, seeks to codify claims of “caste discrimination” into law, ignoring constitutional protections already in place. Several universities and the City of Seattle have added this “protection” to their anti-bias policies, citing the flawed Cisco case.
In truth, these moves are simply anti-Indian and anti-Hindu bigotry dressed up as social justice. To suggest that Indian Americans of Hindu origin are especially prone to bringing “old country” biases with them to the United States is an age-old xenophobic slander that has been employed against every immigrant group for time immemorial. What Irish or Italian American will be accused of caste discrimination?
Indian Americans are subject to discrimination, according to a joint survey by the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2020. And a much-cited 2016 study that alleged widespread caste discrimination among Indian Americans is suspect in its data, methodology and purpose. Both a California judge and the Carnegie researchers dismissed the 2016 study as unscientific and useless.
And why the urgent need since existing statutes and case law are already protect against such “class” discrimination? If caste is codified in law, all Indian Americans are inherently suspect in their dealings, violating their due process rights (with the power of California’s hammer hanging above).
As Newsom eyes higher office, he needs to get this right with an important immigrant constituency. Indian Americans are a critical voting bloc who helped deliver President Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 and raise Democrats vast sums of campaign dollars. Offending them would be unwise for any political aspirant.
Discrimination certainly exists in America, and we rightly have protections under law for those who face it but inventing hate out of whole cloth does real victims a disservice.
For Newsom, vetoing this bill would be both good policy and politics.
Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and the cofounder of Coalition for TJ, which has challenged discrimination against Asian American students in high school admissions.
(The article was published on Ocregister.com on September 11, 2023 and has been reproduced here)
