The debate over how, or even whether, to fight discrimination based on caste — an ancient social ranking system associated with the Hindu religion — is heating up in California. 

As Governor Newsom is considering whether to sign a bill that would ban “caste discrimination,” a Hindu advocacy group is suing in federal court over the state’s existing efforts to combat the problem, claiming it violates the U.S. constitution.

The group contends that California’s Civil Rights Department’s efforts to fight perceived caste discrimination in workplaces violate the First Amendment by targeting Hindus since the public associates caste with Hinduism. 

One such recent case against technology conglomerate Cisco led to an embarrassing failure for the department.

Existing law already protects against “ancestral or background-based” discrimination, the Hindu American Foundation’s executive director, Suhag Shukla, tells the Sun, and caste is a “racially charged term.”

The caste discrimination bill, introduced by State Senator Aisha Wahab and passed by the state’s legislature, aims to define ancestry — already protected by state civil rights statutes — to include caste, which is defined as “an individual’s perceived position in a system of social stratification” based on “inherited status.” 

The bill also “defines the word caste and follows the Civil Rights Department’s authority for enforcement of these violations,” Ms. Wahab said.

In previous caste discrimination cases, California’s Civil Rights Department violated the “First Amendment rights of all Hindu Americans,” the Hindu American Foundation argues in its lawsuit in the Eastern District of California. 

The group says California’s “false and disparaging definition of Hinduism” treats Hindus in an “unequal and different” manner than other religions. 

The group’s new lawsuit is an amended version of a previous one, which a judge dismissed, contending the organization lacked standing to sue and calling their claims “highly speculative.” The court allowed the foundation to amend the lawsuit, and they refiled with “far more specificity,” Ms. Shukla tells the Sun. 

The lawsuit could put national attention on the Civil Rights Department, which would enforce California’s caste discrimination law, which Mr. Newsom has not indicated whether he will sign. If he does, he “risks alienating millions of Indian Americans,” Indian-American journalist Asra Nomani recently wrote.

His decision is expected to spark national conversation over the meaning of “caste,” how closely it is associated with Hinduism, and the constitutionality of including it in existing anti-discrimination laws. It also will likely bring further questions about the efforts behind the bill in the first place and if the term “caste” can be abused by those seeking to bring lawsuits against employers.

The bill seeks to “protect the most vulnerable,” Ms. Wahab tells the Sun, by exposing a “long-hidden form of discrimination regardless of background, religion, or culture.”

Caste, an ancient social hierarchy often associated with the Hindu religion, persists in some parts of India, and some Indian Americans in the United States maintain identities related to their castes, the Sun has reported.

In India, the caste system over the centuries led to chronic discrimination against “lower” castes and the caste system is banned by the Indian Constitution.

Amid the debate about caste discrimination in America, which has led to protests, rallies, and hunger strikes, a leading scholar of caste defends the bill.

“My scholarship says that this actually just clarifies the law,” a University of Maryland law professor, Guha Krishnamurthi, tells the Sun. Both state and federal case law already make it clear that “race” and “ancestry” discrimination is prohibited, but this bill spells it out more clearly in civil rights statutes, he says.

Opponents of the bill say they are worried about fraudulent lawsuits and allegations, Mr. Krishnamurthi notes, adding that, “those claims are similar to what people said while the Civil Rights Act was being passed.”

The bill’s generic definition of caste — which doesn’t explicitly mention Hinduism — makes it less risky that it will be ruled unconstitutional in the future, Mr. Krishnamurthi adds. 

Because caste originated in and has close ties to the Hindu religion, the effort to ban it in America raises questions “about the constitutionality of prohibiting caste discrimination,” Mr. Krishnamurthi recently wrote in the University of Chicago Law Review. 

He noted the arguments made by some opponents that “recognizing caste discrimination violates the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment” because it would “demean religions, like Hinduism, in doing so.”

The caste system stems from an ancient Hindu text, the Rig Veda, which outlines four social categories, including priests, warriors, merchants, and laborers, all of whom stem from a higher being. Later, a fifth category called the “untouchables” — later known as Dalits — was created.

Today, some say more questions about “caste” need to be asked, especially given the origins of caste discrimination discussion in America, which stem in part from the lawsuit filed against Cisco in 2020 by California’s Civil Rights Department. The case is often cited as the primary example of caste discrimination in the U.S.

Yet one of the Cisco engineers who was at the center of the case, Sundar Iyer, tells the Sun the Civil Rights Department had no basis to sue. 

“Will Senator Wahab tell the Governor the truth?” Mr. Iyer says.

The California Civil Rights Department claimed that Mr. Iyer and another Cisco engineer discriminated against another employee — a Dalit — on the basis of his position in the caste system.

That case, which in April was dropped against the engineers but remains active against Cisco, was used “as the primary catalyst for the caste discrimination movement in California,” Mr. Iyer tells the Sun. 

Mr. Iyer contends California found there was no evidence that he was discriminating against Dalits. 

Although he says he is not Hindu or religious at all, Mr. Iyer says the state labeled him as a member of a higher caste than the Dalit employee. “How ironic? A civil rights organization deliberately assigned me a caste based on my last name, not my beliefs,” he said in a recent public talk. 

He added that California’s Civil Rights Department “perpetuated a racist caste-by-birth system that they claim to oppose.” 

Mr. Iyer says he does not have a position on the caste bill itself but says that Ms. Wahab “refused and publicly attacked any suggestions of a community consultation on caste, including her own constituents,” when she drafted the proposed law.

The California Civil Rights Department is “committed to combating discrimination in California wherever it occurs,” a representative of the agency tells the Sun, noting that the Cisco litigation is ongoing. 

When asked about the Cisco case, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom declined to comment on the “pending litigation” and noted that the governor has until October 14 to act on the caste bill.