The TLDR: Last year, California state authorities filed a caste discrimination lawsuit against Cisco and two of its employees. Cisco has fought very hard to shut down the case—but has so far failed to do so. This isn’t big news right now but we think the story is worth your attention and time. 

Tell me about the lawsuit

Back in June, 2020, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Cisco and two of its former managers: Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella. The core allegation:

"Cisco engaged in unlawful employment practices on the bases of religion, ancestry, national origin/ethnicity, and race/color against Complainant John Doe, and after Doe opposed such unlawful practices, Cisco retaliated against him. Cisco also failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent such unlawful practices in its workplace, as required under FEHA."

The alleged facts: of the case are as follows:

• The person was hired in 2015 and placed in a team under Iyer—who like Kompella is a Brahmin. 
• Iyer had been the person’s classmate in IIT. And in 2016, he told everyone that the person was a Dalit and had got into IIT Mumbai via the reservation quota.
• When confronted by the person, Iyer denied doing so—at which point, the person filed a complaint with HR. 
• The HR investigation confirmed instances of caste-based discrimination, but “ultimately concluded "that caste discrimination was not unlawful" under U.S. law (more on this later). Point to note: Cisco was ranked No. 2 on Fortune’s 100 Best Workplaces for Diversity in 2019.
• After he filed the complaint, Iyer took away his role as lead on two projects, and instead promoted Kompella to a head engineering role. 
• In his new role, Kompella became the person’s supervisor—and “continued to discriminate, harass, and retaliate” against him. Example: giving him assignments that were impossible to complete.
• When the person then filed a written complaint and also flagged the retaliation, Cisco did nothing. It closed its investigations back in 2017.
• The company is also accused of reassigning and isolating the employee, rejecting a raise and denying two promotions.

Hence, the California state charged Cisco of failing to even acknowledge such unlawful conduct, let alone take any steps necessary to prevent it.

Point to note: A former Hindustan Computers Ltd employee filed a similar lawsuit in August, 2020—alleging he was unlawfully terminated by his supervisor due to his caste. But this does not involve Dalits.

What did Cisco do?

The company has fought the case tooth-and-nail, filing three separate petitions. 

Petition #1: would have forced the person to settle their claims via arbitration—which would have allowed the company to keep the proceedings behind closed doors. A judge denied the petition, saying, “This claim and relief exceeds the scope of the private arbitration agreement.” It also noted that the lawsuit filed by California was in public interest—and had broader significance than just offering relief to one individual. 

Petitions #2 and #3: The ‘demurrer’ petition makes the same case as the HR investigation: The US law prohibits discrimination on various grounds—like gender, race, religion etc—but does not recognise or mention caste. The ‘motion to strike’ petition says since the above is true, the caste allegations should be removed from the charges since they are irrelevant. Both were stayed by a judge this week—i.e. they have stalled out for now. 

Point to note: Cisco also continues to deny all wrongdoing:

“We have zero tolerance for discrimination and take all complaints of unfair treatment very seriously… In this case, we thoroughly and fully investigated the employee’s concerns and found that he was treated fairly, highly compensated, and afforded opportunities to work on coveted projects.”

What do the lawyers say?

In January, the Ambedkar International Center and other South Asian human rights groups petitioned to join the case as amicus curiae—i.e advisors to the court. Their lawyers argue that California law does in fact outlaw caste-based discrimination on three grounds:

One: It prohibits discrimination based on ancestry—and that’s exactly what caste is: “If you are born Dalit, your children will be Dalits and nothing can change that.” 

Two: It prohibits discrimination based on race—which is a key factor in this case: “All Dalits are South Asian… If the complainant was not South Asian, and belonged to any other race, he would not have been subjected to caste discrimination.” Also this: “It’s no coincidence that Martin Luther King declared himself an untouchable. He saw direct parallels between the plight of Dalits and that of African Americans.”

Three: It prohibits discrimination based on colour: “Though there are Dalits with lighter skin, there is a perception that Dalits have darker skin pigmentation.” 

Is this a widespread problem in Silicon Valley?

The roots of casteism in America run long and deep. It is also one of our earliest exports to the country.

Rooted in immigration history: Back in 1913, AK Mozumdar, a Bengali immigrant, successfully petitioned for US citizenship arguing that he was a “high caste Hindu” of “Aryan descent”—and therefore he should be considered a “free white person,” which was then a prerequisite for citizenship. But ten years later, he lost his citizenship due to another case that involved Bhagat Singh Thind, who though a Sikh, argued that by being a "high-caste Hindu, of full Indian blood" he was a "Caucasian.” Also this:

“Thind's lawyers argued that he had a revulsion to marrying an Indian woman of the ‘lower races’ when they said, ‘The high-caste Hindu regards the aboriginal Indian Mongoloid in the same manner as the American regards the Negro, speaking from a matrimonial standpoint.’ His lawyers argued that Thind had a revulsion to marrying a woman of the Mongoloid race, because they felt that expressing ‘disdain for inferiors’ would characterize Thind as being white."

Rooted in IITs: The elite Indian engineers carry their casteism with them to Silicon Valley, along with their IIT degrees. Fuelled by resentment over SC/ST reservations, it remains as rampant and ugly even today:

“Caste-based resentment at the IITs can run high. In one video posted on YouTube in 2018, a student poring over a pile of books is labeled ‘GEN,’ for general pool, while the two students sleeping nearby are identified as ‘SC’ and ‘ST.’ In another post circulated widely among IIT groups last year, a student suggested Covid-19 should also give preferential treatment to the marginalized groups. ‘My dear Corona,’ it said in Hindi. ‘In every sphere SC/STs get first preference. So if you can, please look into the same.’”

Spreading to Silicon Valley: The tech hub is often referred to as “Agraharam Valley”—a reference to Brahmin neighborhoods of villages in South India. And according to Dalit engineers—just as in IIT—their upper caste routinely ostracise, humiliate and punish them. It's the reason why most Dalits in the Valley do their best to avoid fellow Indians:

“In more than 100 job interviews for contract work over the past 20 years, [Benjamin] Kaila said he got only one job offer when another Indian interviewed him in person. When members of the interview panel have been Indian, Kaila says, he has faced personal questions that seem to be used to suss out whether he’s a member of an upper caste, like most of the Indians working in the tech industry.”

Point to note: Thanks to this lawsuit, 260 others have stepped forward within weeks to file complaints with a US NGO for Dalit rights, Equality Labs:

“Allegations included caste-based slurs and jokes, bullying, discriminatory hiring practices, bias in peer reviews, and sexual harassment, said executive director Thenmozhi Soundararajan. The highest number of claims were from workers at Facebook (33), followed by Cisco (24), Google (20), Microsoft (18), IBM (17) and Amazon (14). The companies all said they don’t tolerate discrimination.”

The bottomline: If the California lawsuit is successful, it will mark the first time that the United States will recognise caste as a category for anti-discrimination laws, placing alongside gender, race etc. And that will finally force the tech companies out of their state of deep denial, as one expert points out: “Then it doesn’t matter what Microsoft thinks, it doesn’t matter what Google thinks, it doesn’t matter what Amazon thinks. They have to pay attention to the law.”

Reading list

The Wire has a good recent overview of the case, while National Herald has more details of the lawsuit. Moneycontrol reports on Cisco’s petitions. Bloomberg News has a must read on the rampant casteism in IITs. Washington Post looked at discrimination in Silicon Valley. Also read: Equality Lab director Thenmozhi Soundararajan’s op-ed on the same subject.