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Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

indiatoday.in

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Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#541

Post by ummonk »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #461
tshaddox wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why laws about protected classes would be directly relevant in the case described in the top-level comment here, which is a manager who "was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively." That just sounds like an ordinary problem with basic job performance. Surely most company policies would have ways of handling employees who are just blat…

The history of employment law suggests this is not the case. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Country_(film) > Josey quickly befriends several other female workers at the mine and soon realizes the women are constant targets for sexual harassment and humiliation by most of their male co-workers, who, like Hank, believe the women are taking jobs more appropriate for men. The union in real life was…

Companies have to protect people from protected classes. That doesn't mean they can't fire people for being assholes to non-protected classes. (It's a separate question of whether casteism would count as discrimination against a protected class - arguably it should, since only people of certain nationalities / races are subjected to casteism.)

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#542

Post by ummonk »

saalweachter wrote: post #393
abduhl wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is caste not a subset of national origin or race? Do Indians who discriminate on the basis of caste also discriminate against non-Indians of a lower caste, or is it solely confined to other Indians? If not directly a protected class, why would this not clearly be a disparate impact type of case?

It might be! I'm not a lawyer, and have no idea if there is already precedent in the US specifically regarding castes, but there is a motion that national origin covers ancestry. It's entirely possible that the legal department in the story above thought it was a cut and dry case and that's why they pushed hard to shut it down before it became one.

Yeah it sounds like legal saw it as cut and dry at least that he could be fired (and possibly that they also had a requirement to do so), while HR folks were making nonsensical arguments of the kind we're seeing here from non-lawyers.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#543

Post by ummonk »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #469
adamsmith143 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok are there also specific legal protections for Eye color, Hair Color, presence of Freckles, etc? Does every possible way to discriminate need to be clearly spelled out for it to be illegal?

Discrimination against eye color would definitely be forbidden as discrimination against race; you can't ban everybody except those with blue eyes without having a racially disparate impact. This is probably true of those other physical characteristics too. But speaking more generally, the principle in America is that if something isn't forbidden, then it is permitted. You could probably get away with some nonsense l…

Yes, and by the same token, discrimination on the basis of caste would likely be judged to have a disparate impact based on nationality, race, and religion (against Hindus / Indians), since such discrimination won't impact people of other races. We just don't have actual precedent about it yet, but any company that doesn't take action over it is playing with fire.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#544

Post by marshray »

googlryas wrote: post #509
anoonmoose wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tautology I suppose, but, because you can't change them. You didn't choose it and it's immutable. Not fair to discriminate against someone for something they can't control. This is, of course, personal opinion of mine.

We do discriminate against things people can't control, like intelligence. If you have an IQ of 80, I can almost guarantee you will not be accepted to a college to become an architect, lawyer, or doctor. But also, discriminating against things people can control is really just one party trying to apply soft power over another, and I am generally against it. You might be able to legally say you can't work at this comp…

Intelligence directly affects, and can be observed in, employee work output.

For some jobs, other it may not matter.

In fact, US courts have upheld explicit discrimination against people of higher IQ: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#545

Post by ummonk »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #446
duxup wrote: post #189

I worked at a company where this was an issue at one point (granted this was one situation among a lot of employees). A manager was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively. HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes tha…

I don't understand how you can be so dismissive of HR talking about discrimination while at the same time praising legal for firing someone for discrimination, and compensating people for being discriminated against. What would you like HR to do about caste-based discrimination? Apparently not send emails, or mention it in classes? You just want them to go straight to firing?

"You just want them to go straight to firing?"

Assuming it is clear cut discrimination, yes. Especially when it's a manager doing it.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#546

Post by [deleted] »

saalweachter wrote: post #378
adamsmith143 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most likely they struggled because the legal language in policies was ambiguous on how to handle the situation, therefore opening the room for the manager to pursue action against the company for consequences for their behavior. How? Do you really think their language specified that discrimination could only happen from white people to minorities?

I'm guessing they weren't sure whether caste was a protected class. Discrimination in law revolves around protected classes (race, religion, national origin, age and sex are the "big five" in the US, and subsequent acts and decisions have added sexual orientation/gender identity, familial status, pregnancy, disability, veteran status, and genetic information). If you act on the basis of that, someone can, well, make…

[deleted]

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#547

Post by ZoomerCretin »

illuminati1911 wrote: post #328

”Recently, talking about the incident to the New Yorker, Tanuja said, "A number of e-mails got sent to my VP, to the head of HR, to our chief diversity officer, to our CEO directly, claiming that the talk was creating a hostile workplace, that people felt unsafe, that the speaker was not qualified to speak on the topic and several other allegations." She also claimed that in tech companies, including Google, discrimi…

> ”felt unsafe”, ”hostile environment” etc. woke newspeak

Were these terms not in use 40 years ago? I'd think these two terms don't fall under whatever "woke newspeak" is understood to mean these days.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#548

Post by watwut »

teakettle42 wrote: post #537
toofy wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you may be thinking of something different from intersectionality. this situation is a perfect example of one of the most basic foundational concepts of intersectionality. - person A is discriminated against because of some trait - person A may use whatever power they have to diminish another person because of some trait their own group has historically oppressed. discrimination isn’t a direct straight line. it’s muc…

That’s the theory, which, if you actually took to its logical conclusion, would result in treating and evaluating every individual as an individual, and the entire concept of group identity as a short-hand mechanism for assigning “intersecting identities” would have to be abandoned. That’s not how it is applied in practice.

It does not logically follows at all. Nothing in what previous poster said prevents analysis of group behavior or treatment. It does not make it impossible to talk about race or gender or age - it only makes it less naive.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#549

Post by watwut »

rendall wrote: post #477
outworlder wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

How about instead of being dismissive, which is against the guidelines, you try being instructive?

The original comment was dismissive instead on instructive.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#550

Post by ZeroGravitas »

ummonk wrote: post #541
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of employment law suggests this is not the case. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Country_(film) > Josey quickly befriends several other female workers at the mine and soon realizes the women are constant targets for sexual harassment and humiliation by most of their male co-workers, who, like Hank, believe the women are taking jobs more appropriate for men. The union in real life was…

Companies have to protect people from protected classes. That doesn't mean they can't fire people for being assholes to non-protected classes. (It's a separate question of whether casteism would count as discrimination against a protected class - arguably it should, since only people of certain nationalities / races are subjected to casteism.)

My point was that even people in protected classes will be abused with impunity, if the business doesn't believe that credible case law and/or regulation will actually be able to punish them if theey fail to protect them. Expecting business to randomly protect people from abuse is just wishful thinking.
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