I don’t understand. If “caste” is something specific to country of India, and if it is not explicitly listed in US law; can the defendant just claim it to be a more generalized version discrimination? It’s like going to a barber shop and they won’t cut your hair because they discriminate based on your accent. It’s discrimination regardless even though it’s not explicitly listed in the law. As far as the US law is concerned, caste system of India is completely arbitrary just like the accent or the color of your clothes or whatever.
US laws typically don’t have a blanket ban on “discrimination” in general, but rather ban discrimination based on explicitly listed characteristics. In this case, they’re accusing Cisco of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin”.
So you’re actually fully allowed to discriminate based on the color of someone’s clothes, although probably not accent since it could be considered a proxy for race or national origin.
> US laws typically don’t have a blanket ban on “discrimination” in general
Discrimination happens any time a choice is made. When we hire one person because we think they'll do a better job or avoid someone because they lack skills we need, we're not hiring indiscriminately -- i.e. we discriminate. Sometimes the criteria make sense and other times they don't.
Seems odd that this is filed in federal court rather than state. The Unruh civil rights act is broader, and the CA supreme court has ruled that its enumerated characteristics are "illustrative rather than restrictive".
Caste is another term for race. Both terms are not terms that designate bioligical properties of a person but social grouping based on perceived social differences (e.g.: even if your skin is lighter than some white people, having 1/8th black ancestory will get you classified as black, while actual african americans with wealthy had become "honorary white").
Like others have said, you can't say "I won't hire you because you have red hair" either for example. If I make up the practical equivalent of a race and arbitrarily deny jobs to people because of it, that violates the equal employment opportunity law. If I deny jobs because of skin melanin content, regardless of sociap definitins if race, the fact that I don't call it race does not change the fact that it is "race" , a classification of humans that identifies behavioral,physiolgical and intellectual traits based on membership to a unique genetic ancestory.
Accent and color of your cloth are not bioligical hereditary properties.
Isn't it the other way where profession is based on the caste you are born into? You make it sound like a child born into a lower caste can choose a profession that lets them join a higher caste. It's not different than american back slaves being born into slavery, if you call slavery a profession or jim crow era legal segregation limiting jobs based on race.
> U.S. employment law does not specifically bar caste-based discrimination, but California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing contends in the lawsuit that the Hindu faith’s lingering caste system is based on protected classes such as religion.
Or are you wondering if such a reclassification will be allowed? I can certainly see it being so.
Yea exactly, I read that which led me to comment here - I am further questioning that if it is not explicitly listed like a billion other things, what is the approach a defendant can take?
That makes sense. I am curious how would the court respond to discrimination based on, say, tattoos on their forehead? Extreme example to make a point.
Not the same thing, if you chose to be a member of caste or it had nothing to do with your anceatory then your comparison would hold true. But even if you said "curly haired people can't work here" that would be racial descrimination. The term race can mean different things in different cultures but the reasonable person's understanding would be ancestoral grouping of people based on physiological characteristic such as skin color.
Consider how east asians can sometimes have skin whiter than scandanavians but their race is still asian. Or how brown skinned southern europeans can be white while similarly skin-toned north africans are excluded from whiteness.
That would be solidly legal, I'd guess. At least under federal law. Discrimination is just the preference of one thing over another. It is not illegal. What is illegal is racial, religious, sex, etc. discrimination.
