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California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

reuters.com

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Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#31

Post by paloaltokid »

rudiv wrote: post #20
usaar333 wrote: post #10

> lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their U.S. workplaces. I'm more surprised 67% of Dalits would have coworkers knowing their caste. Can someone give context on how this happens?

If you're raised in India, it is relatively easy to determine someone's general (varna) caste and specific (jati) caste from their familial name(s) and/or physical appearance. You can pick these things up by osmosis from adults (my case), through being taught, or simply through caste-influenced culture. It's quite complicated, and I'm not an expert. You don't even have to be Hindu to be a part of the caste system - M…

> it is relatively easy to determine someone's general (varna) caste and specific (jati) caste from their familial name(s) and/or physical appearance.

Is this because people from a specific caste tend to concentrate in a specific geographic region?

I've learned as a Westerner that there's no model I've grown up with that's really the best for making sense of India as someone who wasn't born there. What makes the most sense to me is what an Indian colleague told me - "think of it as the United States of Europe -- that many languages, that much diversity, that much complexity and problems."

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#32

Post by bsder »

usaar333 wrote: post #10

> lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their U.S. workplaces. I'm more surprised 67% of Dalits would have coworkers knowing their caste. Can someone give context on how this happens?

How long do you think it would take, as an American, to figure out of someone is from New York, Boston, or Alabama? You'd know practically the moment they opened their mouth.

Yeah, it might take you longer to figure out if someone was from Florida or California, but that would probably come out relatively quickly in how they talk about beaches.

Humans group and identify others (often wrongly) really quickly.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#33

Post by paloaltokid »

rudiv wrote: post #26
yalogin wrote: post #18

> Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco’s workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other high castes. This seems too important to just throw in unsubstantiated. I have never seen this kind of statistic.

It may be surprising or disconcerting to you, but it is an assumption that is usually borne out - I don't have figures for you, so I can't speak to this specific case. It is well documented that access to education, wealth, and most other factors that determine whether an Indian can emigrate to America for a highly-skilled job are extremely skewed in favour of the forward castes.

I was told by a colleague that most Indian folks you meet in tech in the Bay Area are the 1 percenters of India. Is that kind of what you're saying here as well?

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#34

Post by vijaybritto »

usaar333 wrote: post #10

> lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their U.S. workplaces. I'm more surprised 67% of Dalits would have coworkers knowing their caste. Can someone give context on how this happens?

Its with the names. The caste names are mostly attached as surnames. Its pretty easy to identify and discriminate based on that.

Its similar to black people having white sounding to avoid being skipped over while applying for jobs.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#35

Post by bsder »

yalogin wrote: post #18

> Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco’s workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other high castes. This seems too important to just throw in unsubstantiated. I have never seen this kind of statistic.

Most US immigrants from distant countries are from rich families (not just India).

It generally takes resources to immigrate. Poor classes don't have those resources.

There are, of course, exceptions when a wave of immigration is driven by war or asylum seekers from a country leadership change.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#36

Post by samfisher83 »

duxup wrote: post #3

>At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states. I wouldn't expect HR to side with the lower level employee as generally HR groups are there to protect the company.... but I would wonder what their findings…

If I was HR why wouldn't you just fire the manager and move on. I mean whether it was legal or illegal the optics look terrible.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#38

Post by paloaltokid »

I'm a very white guy living in California and I often get the impression that caste is something that Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people.

On some level it feels to me like it's something Indian folks don't share because they feel it would be misunderstood (which makes a lot of sense). Or maybe it's a kind of "not airing out the laundry in public."

I would love feedback on this. Thanks.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#39

Post by jojobas »

hartator wrote: post #37

> but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018 How this shit is legal.

Calm down with your cultural imperialism. /s

Seriously though, would something as foreign to US be a protected class?

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#40

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

systemvoltage wrote: post #24
29athrowaway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this would be a form of religious discrimination, because it's discrimination based on religious beliefs.

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.

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.
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