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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

#271

Post by tstrimple »

ab_testing wrote: post #245

I think this is a reason why Leetcode style interviews are popular. They remove at least one type of bias of race - the ability to solve coding problems. If you can solve Online Assessment, Phone Assessment and Onsites, you keep moving on to the next round, regardless of your race or ethnicity. It is a way for companies to claim that there is no bias in hiring.

I don't think this is true at all. People who pass the leetcode can still be passed over for "cultural fit" or they may not even make it to the coding portion of the interview at all.

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

#272

Post by thorncorona »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #249
mcv wrote: post #3

My dad once told me of how at his work (in the 1980s or early 1990s, I think), they had a team of two Indians assigned to a project. One turned out to be of a much "higher" caste than the other, and refused to work with the other, making him utterly useless to the project. It's good that Apple, IBM and other tech companies are taking steps to prevent this sort of discrimination. It's a shame that Google seems be goin…

The real shame is that living in Delhi, I’ve seen caste come back very strongly in everyday discourse. I’ve been here almost 20 years. This city used to be largely caste agnostic. Now when I meet new people, especially outside the elite tech circles, they will casually mention their upper caste status (“As Brahmins, we don’t do xyz of course!”). Even cars carrying caste stickers are more common.

Do you know why this happened?

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

#273

Post by OOD »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #205
PaulHoule wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cisco is famous for being sued for all sides. They let go of middle-aged white people (who sue) and then hire young Indians they can underpay (who also sue.)

I mean I'm kinda glad they sue instead of roll over and take the pay. International hiring at lower pay is a capitalist strategy you see everywhere. I watched a Business Insider video a while ago about (of all things) mushroom farmers somewhere in the US. They bluntly admitted they lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of crop because they couldn't find staff. They couldn't find staff because they only hired south-…

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

#274

Post by lolsal »

tawaywoah2 wrote: post #140
flerchin wrote: post #123

California treats ancestry as a protected class, and discrimination by ancestry is illegal. Not being a Desi, I struggle to see how this is not already covered.

>> California treats ancestry as a protected class, and discrimination by ancestry is illegal. Not being a Desi, I struggle to see how this is not already covered. It is covered, but not enforced because evidence is difficult. Caste discrimination in Silicon Valley is usually about putting someone from a lower caste into an impossible project that is destined to fail, and boom...now you've got your PIP quota ready fo…

> It is covered, but not enforced because evidence is difficult. Caste discrimination in Silicon Valley is usually about putting someone from a lower caste into an impossible project that is destined to fail, and boom...now you've got your PIP quota ready for the coming season.

When I hear about insidious things like this it boggles my mind how some people can be so clever in order to be so hurtful. Thanks for educating me.

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

#275

Post by raverbashing »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #31
eatbitseveryday wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a large semiconductor company, the same could be said for many groups: Chinese hiring other Chinese, one group hiring native Americans mostly, others with Hispanic origin…

Human tribalism is, unfortunately, present everywhere. Every country and every company.

True.

At a minor scale, all this is fine. People do hire colleagues from previous jobs or from the same Uni, for example

But there's a limit and managers, etc need to be very aware. You can't just have one person hiring all their acquaintances

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

#277

Post by atdrummond »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #237
dj_gitmo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of US semiconductor fabs are in New Mexico. Some were even built on Navajo land. It's an industry where Native Americans were well represented.

Which fabs are in NM other than Intel's 11x (and maybe Sandia)? Wikipedia [1] doesn't list anything, but I also don't see many smaller, exotic technology fabs on there. I'm really curious where they could site a fab on the Navajo reservation because of how profoundly inadequate most of the infrastructure is even for typical American households, let alone a fab. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_…

Also the Navajo/Hopi water rights issue is complicated, to say the least.

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

#278

Post by michaelt »

civilized wrote: post #161
stjohnswarts wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know who I would have fired without hesitation.

Along with anyone who found this a difficult decision once the facts were clear. People with these beliefs don't belong anywhere in society where they can oppress others. Just as white people who think blacks are beneath them do not belong in any setting where they can affect a black person.

I'm not surprised some people found it a difficult decision to be honest.

I mean, discovering a new form of discrimination, which only Indians can perform? And none of your fellow managers have ever heard of this stuff? And you don't know WTF a caste is?

And I doubt the accused is telling HR "yeah, I discriminate on caste, got a problem with that?" - they might instead be saying "some of his behaviour towards me has made me uncomfortable, I don't want to complain formally I just think everyone would be happier if we were on different projects"

I can see why a person might decide that's not a minefield they're equipped to navigate, and pass the issue over to HR.

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

#279

Post by margalabargala »

ummonk wrote: post #17
dimitrios1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work predominately with Indian coworkers. You are exactly correct in my view. Racism has technically been banned in the United States wholesale since the Civil Rights act, yet we struggle with the effects still today. This is a step in a right direction, but it should be seen as only as the beginning.

Casteism, while bad, is not racism. Saying casteism is ingrained in Indians on the other hand is racism.

> Casteism, while bad, is not racism.

This relies on a fairly narrow view of what constitutes "race" or "racism".

The caste of a person is fundamentally based on their ancestry. Thus, discriminating based on caste is discriminating based on a person's ancestry. I think a lot of reasonable people would consider that to fall under the definition of "racism".

Yes, it's true that there is a lot of diversity of ethnic groups and e.g. skin color within castes in different regions of India. But just because people discriminate on certain aspects of race (ancestry) and not others (skin color) doesn't make it not racism.

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

#280

Post by mcv »

spinningarrow wrote: post #185
smcl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says in the article that Google (and Microsoft, Dell, Amazon + FB/Meta) aren't (yet?) implementing this, but I didn't see anything about them doing the opposite . Additionally I don't imagine they'd gain much from doing so, as a business. Is there any more info on this?

From the article: > Just a few months ago in June, Google, whose CEO Sundar Pichai has Indian roots, cancelled a talk on caste discrimination where Dalit rights activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan was supposed to give a presentation. The talk was organised by Google employee Tanuja Gupta. It’s not the opposite but probably what GP was referring to.

It's why I used the word "seems". It doesn't prove they're going the opposite direction, but it does give that impression. Hopefully Google is taking this issue more seriously.
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