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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

#41

Post by davidgay »

dcolkitt wrote: post #22
js8 wrote: post #9

Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of protected groups (i.e. they explicitly enumerate who is not to be discriminated), while EU has laws based on equality of the groups (or more generally, humans). It seems to me that the American system is more antagonistic, in the sense it really prefers some group…

One underlying difference is that the US has at-will employment. Meaning an employer can terminate employee for any reason, except specific no-no reasons. In the US, it's perfectly legal to fire someone, just cause you think their haircut is stupid, they stole your girlfriend, they root for a sports team you don't like, or you just plain don't like them. I don't want to over-generalize, because Europe is a collection…

> Discriminating on the basis of sports fandom, haircut or taste in music is perfectly legal.

IIUC, correlation of any of those with any of the protected classes will land you in trouble though (and I would guess at least the second two from your list are definitely so correlated).

As a result, again IIUC, all the large companies(+) follow, in practice, a European-style approach: there has to be a well-documented, based on some clearly-non-discriminatory criteria (++), reason for firing you (hence performance-improvement-plans, etc, etc).

[+] large companies == worth suing - again IIUC small companies can basically do what you say

[++] I think that still ends up being easier than firing people in many European countries, though

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

#43

Post by ramraj07 »

paloaltokid wrote: post #38

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 publi…

I have experienced caste-based "weirdness" of a slightly different flavor - I look like a brahmin (the highest caste), but am not one. Every once in a while I'll meet some indian-origin guy who's brahmin who will come ask me if I am okay with eating that tortilla since it contains lard. Once I let it deliberately slip that I'm not in-fact brahmin, they will be like, "oh" and change topics. The oh always sounds to me like, "oh, I thought you belonged to the ubermensh Aryan class but you don't so I guess I don't care about your depraved ways!" - sounds like an exaggeration but I have worked too long with too many of these people to be confident that this is what they think. The most rewarding thing for me is when I tell that all my exes were brahmin (it's a trope that they're pissed all their women are being stolen by lower caste men).

Also all of this in the US; it's almost like many indian origin American (even second gen) Brahmins are far more racist than the general Indian population of the same group. Definitely a lesson in anthropology for sure.

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

#44

Post by jcheng »

dcolkitt wrote: post #22
js8 wrote: post #9

Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of protected groups (i.e. they explicitly enumerate who is not to be discriminated), while EU has laws based on equality of the groups (or more generally, humans). It seems to me that the American system is more antagonistic, in the sense it really prefers some group…

One underlying difference is that the US has at-will employment. Meaning an employer can terminate employee for any reason, except specific no-no reasons. In the US, it's perfectly legal to fire someone, just cause you think their haircut is stupid, they stole your girlfriend, they root for a sports team you don't like, or you just plain don't like them. I don't want to over-generalize, because Europe is a collection…

That makes a lot of sense for termination. How about hiring? Do you know if the European system specifies what attributes are and aren’t allowed to be considered when it comes to hiring employees?

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

#45

Post by ramraj07 »

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 also relatively very wrong to "determine" someone's cast by their looks. You can say you guessed it, but you should stop short of that probably.

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

#46

Post by sk0g »

paloaltokid wrote: post #38

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 publi…

I lived in India for a bit, and no shit they wouldn't share it. It's a horrible form of discrimination, worse than racism in some ways, IMO.

You could, historically, spread your "untouchableness" by contacting people of other castes, for example. Marrying your child to someone from a lower caste is seen as a shameful move to many people.

White people would absolutely not understand this, yes, but what is there to understand? This is just discrimination based on your family + skin tone to some extent, and the sooner it dies, the better.

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

#47

Post by ramraj07 »

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?

Names, partly, but again, often comes back to skin color. Darker -> lower caste

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

#48

Post by thaumasiotes »

NikkiA wrote: post #6
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…

I'm guessing they concluded that the employee's caste is neither race nor national origin. But I'd expect the state to argue that discrimination against an indian caste is inherently national origin based discrimination since they're unlikely to treat any non-indian as they would a dalit, and even if they did they'd be then discriminating on the national identity of the non-indian (ie, treating non-dalit indians bett…

> But I'd expect the state to argue that discrimination against an indian caste is inherently national origin based discrimination

That would be stupid. Caste discrimination is pretty obviously not national origin discrimination. But it is race discrimination! Race and caste are identical concepts -- you get them from your parents.

(It is, however, not discrimination against a race that is recognized by American law.)

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

#49

Post by awakeasleep »

hartator wrote: post #37

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

To give you a concise answer, USA Federal law only prohibits discrimination based on the following characteristics:

Race. Color. Religion or creed. National origin or ancestry. Sex. Age. Physical or mental disability. Veteran status. Genetic information. Citizenship.

Anything else you can think of is a legal reason to discriminate

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

#50

Post by _8j50 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #8

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 con…

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.

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