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.
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
301 points (96.6% liked)
News
23301 readers
4135 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
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.
Without specific protections the burden is on the victim to prove they were victimized at all.
I don’t understand. How would the new law have helped people who can’t prove they’re being discriminated against? How would that work?
It would create a clear burden of proof by defining caste discrimination in exact terms, which they could then use to make their case.
Without specificity, they have to prove caste discrimination exists and then prove that they meet the criteria.
What would this law have done to change it? How would it be applied? I hope that doesn’t sound like a bad faith question because I’m actually curious.
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?
"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.
hmm, I mean, the law does explicitly mention discrimination based on ancestry. the caste system is just a structure of ancestral discrimination. one could argue that caste is interchangeable with ancestry for the purpose of this law. i can see why he wouldn't want a different law to ban every synonym and foreign language word for a thing that's already banned.
load more comments
(3 replies)
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.
Like I said, I don't see the harm in spelling it out even if it is superfluous, it does make me wonder if he vetoed it for another reason and doesn't want to say.
The reason is silicon valley, where managers of Indian descent routinely hold back people from lower castes. Seattle were the first to ban caste discrimination, and Amazon and Microsoft were not supportive of that.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Can the existing laws be applied to caste discrimination? They haven't been so far.
Do we know that? Is there case law?
No, there has so far been one lawsuit that it still being litigated. There is a legal argument that caste discrimination would be protected by existing law, but that theory hasn't been tested yet.
Does that mean caste discrimination does not exist in the USA? Or does it mean no one has yet felt like the law would be on their side?
Are they being applied to caste discrimination though?
I don't know, that's where we would need a CA lawyer to chime in. Obviously that's where this issue could go either way.
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.
As an Indian I completely disagree. Caste discrimination should've died a long time ago, and it being a socioeconomic + cultural thing makes it difficult to target with discrimination laws.
Just amend the bill to ban any religious based discrimination where someone is considered lesser.
you have tools for that.
Quitting?
Without being able to prove that your irrelevant "caste" was the cause of unfavorable treatment, your argument is just that they don't like you. They would have to say that they are discriminating against you because you have "lesser" lineage, which they won't.
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?
The laws don't ban discrimination for 'any reason', they ban discrimination for a number of reasons with the specification that those reasons should be applied broadly. There is a distinct difference.
Exactly. It would be pretty stupid for a governor to say existing laws already apply when they don't, but I don't exactly trust any politician to tell the truth unless it's politically expedient for them.
It's one of those things where existing laws could apply, but are less effective than spelling it out when there's an issue. Law, after all, is not about elegance, it's about precision.
load more comments
(1 replies)
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
I wonder if that was applied to everybody.
Well it says "all Men." Explicitly excluding women and children. Of course one can argue that that the literal text wasn't what was really intended by the founders. That would be "all White land-owning Men." 250 years later, that intention is still writ large on American society, even though we like to pretend that "they obviously meant 'all People.'"
Here's hoping the California legislature can override that veto.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Remember kids, if the law doesn't specifically mention something, you can't trust the implication that it should be covered.
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.
This is the worse of the two vetoes I read; what would the addition of the bill cost anyway?
It would cost the votes of people who like caste discrimination.
Indigeneity was also part of it.
That would give Native Americans the right to claim all kinds of discrimination.
It might even affect fossil fuel explorations and water resources.
Can't have that.
So Hindus?
Or anyone who likes discrimination for its own sake.
“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.
But as you pointed out USA doesn't acknowledge caste, so specifying caste discrimination would be bad, so making sure it can be prosecuted under the "general" discrimination laws makes more sense, doesn't it?
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
view more: next ›