How to Be Anti-Caste in Tech

In July 2020, California authorities sued Cisco for discrimination against an engineer on the basis of caste. The engineer was expected to accept a caste hierarchy within the workplace where he held the lowest status within the team and, as a result, received less pay, fewer opportunities, and other inferior terms and conditions of employment. When he opposed the treatment, they responded with retaliation by reducing his role on the team, isolating him from colleagues and giving him assignments that were "impossible to complete under the circumstances." The landmark suit not only gives us a glimpse at how globalization affects US discrimination laws, but also has created a major opportunity for caste to become a protected class in the workplace.

A survey conducted by Equality Labs found caste discrimination rampant in all the major tech workplaces in the US. While many tech workers in the US are becoming sensitized to workplace aggressions on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality, caste discrimination has only recently emerged in public consciousness in the West, even though major tech companies have been complicit in the establishment of caste hierarchies for decades. As we know with other forms of oppression, it is not enough to be caste-blind. Instead, we must be actively anti-caste and learn to become more literate in the subtle markers of caste discrimination.

Readings

• Caste in Tech Virtual Town Hall Equality Labs video (content warning: at 1:16:00 CEO Anil Dash enters the conversation)

• Solidarity Statement to End Caste Practices in Silicon Valley and the USA

• If you are a South Asian tech worker in the US, please consider taking this survey

Additional Readings

• Worker Experiences with Caste in the Workplace YCOMBINATOR

• After Cisco, HCL sued by former Indian employee in US over caste discrimination The News Minute

• Findings on Caste Survey Equality Labs

Discussion Questions

1. In the Equality labs in the video, Lakshmi Mittal makes the case that "engineers invest in the mythology of their own castlessness." How do these systems of oppression get reproduced in the US? How might American exceptionalism play into (and even reinforce) dominant caste ideology?

2. What makes caste discrimination particularly covert in an American tech workplace, or in the US in general?

3. Why is worker solidarity critical for being anti-caste in the workplace? Can you think of some ways workers can exercise solidarity with lower-caste workers who might be vulnerable to discrimination?

4. What are the ramifications of a generation of South Asian Americans who are raised "caste blind" as opposed to anti-caste?

5. How do tech companies benefit from leaving lower caste South Asians an unprotected class? How do other forces (particularly the H1B) affect the experience of a lower caste immigrant tech worker?