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Indian American Council Member In Seattle Campaigns For Anti-Caste Discrimination Law

Kshama Sawant, a member of the Seattle City Council seeks to include caste in the city's anti-discrimination laws. She announced the plan this week and claimed that caste prejudice affects South Asian Americans and other immigrant workers in the workplace, notably in the technology and hospitality sectors.

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Kshama Sawant, a member of the Seattle City Council, seeks to include caste in the city's anti-discrimination laws, claiming that because of the South Asian custom of determining social standing at birth, discrimination exists across the US.

Sawant, who announced the plan this week, claimed that caste prejudice affects South Asian Americans and other immigrant workers in the workplace, notably in the technology and hospitality sectors.

'Caste Discrimination Must Be Addressed'

Sawant, in a statement, said, "My office is proud to bring forward first-in-the-nation legislation for our city to ban caste-based discrimination, in solidarity with our South Asian and other immigrant community members, and all working people." She added that caste discrimination must be addressed in the area because there are more than 167,000 South Asian residents of Washington, most of whom reside in the Greater Seattle area, The New Indian Express reported.

Gender, age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are currently covered by Seattle's anti-discrimination law.

Sawant, a socialist and the only Indian American on the city council, recently declared she would resign from the body when her tenure ended at the end of the year. “The fight for this legislation is also linked to the larger working-class fight against the ongoing brutal layoffs in the tech sector,” Sawant said.

In 2022, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing prevailed in an appeals court decision that allowed a caste discrimination lawsuit against Cisco Systems to proceed. According to the case, an engineer's caste background prevented him from receiving professional chances, a raise, and advancements.

According to Sawant, the Alphabet Workers Union, which advocates for Google's parent company's employees, has endorsed the proposal. The union's representatives declined requests for comment from the newspaper, but they have previously released statements denouncing casteism in tech and at Alphabet, including one supporting the Cisco lawsuit.

“Caste-oppressed workers face many barriers throughout the tech industry, including at Alphabet,” the 2021 statement said. “Caste is a system of oppression analogous to racial discrimination and is rampant throughout many American institutions. We support tech workers around the world who are speaking up about casteism and hostile workplaces.”

Support From Academics

The University of California system, the largest state school system in the nation, will include caste in its discrimination protection policy in 2022, continuing the slow but steady growth of efforts to end caste discrimination in the U.S. In 2019, Brandeis University banned discrimination or harassment based on caste.

Within hours of Sawant's proposal's announcement, academics from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, appealed to the Seattle City Council to support it.

If the law is passed in Seattle, Sawant expressed her hope that it will spur similar legislation in other cities and assist international workers in holding American companies responsible for caste-based discrimination.

The law would add caste to the list of protected groups, which the council is set to vote on in late February.

In order to safeguard those seeking abortions in the city, the council approved a resolution quite similar to this one last year that expanded city policy to forbid discrimination based on someone's pregnancy status or the outcome of a pregnancy.

Also Read: Iran Conducts First Known Execution Over Ongoing Protests, Says More To Follow

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