California governor vetoes bill that would have banned caste discrimination
California governor vetoes bill that would have banned caste discrimination
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have made California the first state in the nation to outlaw discrimination based on caste.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have made California the first U.S. state to outlaw caste-based discrimination.
Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent. Those at the lowest strata of the caste system, known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.
Earlier this year, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. On Sept. 28, Fresno became the second U.S. city and the first in California to prohibit discrimination based on caste by adding caste and indigeneity to its municipal code.
In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”
Y'all, by banning this, someone who is the victim of caste discrimination has to first prove that caste discrimination even exists.
And every victim will have to prove this every time.
Yeah, it's a terrible idea. You want such discrimination to be legally responded to using existing non-discrimination law, not something specific to it.
You completely misunderstood.
Because there is nothing specific to caste discrimination in existing law the victims will need to prove discrimination even exists in order to actually use existing non-discrimination law. Without specific protections the burden is on the victim to prove they were victimized at all.
National origin/ancestry: Dalit. Seems covered?
The stories I've heard, anecdotal and I didn't witness. They were between people with the same country of origin.
I wonder how much lobbying came from the tech industry where caste discrimination is definitely a thing
I’m in the tech industry, but not in California and I have never seen cast discrimination. How does this happen in California and gore is it not illegal based on current laws as Newsom is saying?
Here is a fun game: Your job probably has an org chart that lets you see the employee hierarchy. Now, realize that Indian last names almost always denote cast. Understand how to discern cast from names and take a look at your org chart.
I am a white tech worker, so I didn't think much of cast discrimination since I personally never saw even a hint of it at my job. But then I looked at our org cart and oh boy... I now am firmly in the camp that says cast discrimination should be regulated.
"Unnecessary"
what
Eh I see why people would have a visceral reaction to the veto but he (probably) has a point: if the existing laws can already be applied to caste discrimination as they are currently written it isn't technically necessary, having said that I don't see what it would hurt to add caste discrimination specifically. Any lawyers feel free to chime in on other side of the argument.
"Can be" is not necessarily "will be". You can bet your ass that next time someone brings a caste discrimination suit up the defendent's lawyers will point to the explicit lack of laws against caste discrimination to try to get their client off. Whether that has a high chance of success is besides the point - it is much more ambiguous than it would be with a law explicitly addressing the issue. It had gone through the legislature. All he had to do was sign. It's a big "the fuck" moment.
We have laws that ban harming someone and we also have laws that ban killing someone. Clearly there is overlap between harming and killing yet we have laws for both. Laws must be made to clarify these situations, otherwise as we've seen recently the courts can just interpret them however they want based on the judge's personal views, even if it means completely reversing decades of existing precedent.
As a American - we don't really get the need. It's a law specifically for indians and their culture. Which is problematic because laws shouldn't be laser targeted to specific cultures or regions.
Rather than push a law, instead push for education. If you're discriminated against by your boss because you're of a different caste, you have tools for that.
This is exactly why conservatives said they vetoed enshrining gay marriage in federal law. Instead of owning up to being bigots, they said "oh but the law already covers that".
I've come to learn that "the law already covers that so it's unnecessary" is a smoke screen and deflective argument.
If there are laws that ban discrimination for any reason, why should there be more laws banning discrimination for specific reasons?
Remember kids, if the law doesn't specifically mention something, you can't trust the implication that it should be covered.
The existing law already specifies ancestry.
But at the same time, what exactly does caste discrimination even look like? Just writing a law against it doesn't make it not a problem.
I get the feeling that someone who is facing caste discrimination (whatever that looks like) is also unlikely to be able to take legal action against the perpetrators due to the cost.
In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”
Newsom and everybody else standing on this argument is an idiot, look how many categories are in that single sentence alone that didn't used to be there and had to be added precisely because it was easy to dismiss and ignore discrimination before they were specified.
It's the exact same argument that conservatives used when voting against gay marriage in Congress
This is the worse of the two vetoes I read; what would the addition of the bill cost anyway?
“already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”
Caste falls under that stuff already...
The protections are already there, and making a specific law just for this would only legitimize that caste is a real thing and not some bullshit Indians did to discriminate amongst themselves.
So the bill would have accomplished nothing.
Caste doesn't fall under any of these. Because people are clearly willing to hire Hindu people born in India of any gender. So you aren't discriminating against race, national origins, religion, color, or gender. Since the USA doesn't acknowledge caste it can't differentiate between two people of different caste just because of their caste.
The only thing you mentioned that might apply is "Ancestry" but I can't find a description of it since it isn't listed under the protected classes list.
Discrimination isn't inherently illegal. For example, you totally can discriminate against people under the age of 40. Which does happen. Many landlords won't rent to people under 30 and that's perfectly legal.
/thread
They need an explicit law because many of the perpetrators of this crime are immigrants, and it should be grounds for immediate and permanent deportation.
Jesus, Newsom. This is very fucking much a thing. This is genuinely a setback for civil rights.
Let's ban Zodiac sign discrimination or scientology thetan level discrimination! No! Giving these things recognition under law, even if negative, legitimized them.
This was a stupid law to begin with and Newsom is right for vetoing it. Stopping caste discrimination is an education and enforcement problem, not a legislative one.
Wow. He actually does have some common sense.