Davis, California (Associated Press)-UC Davis has included caste in its anti-discrimination policy after students said they had seen discrimination at the university.
According to a report in November by the San Francisco Chronicle, in accordance with the policy of the University of California, Davis, the policy was revised in September. Students or faculty and staff who face discrimination or harassment because of their caste can now file a complaint, which may Lead to a formal investigation.
The University of Northern California may be the first public institution to resolve caste discrimination, which was mainly introduced from South Asia.
Danesha Nichols, Director of the Harassment and Discrimination Assistance and Prevention Program at the University of California, Davis, said: “The importance of adding castes is that it ensures that the most vulnerable and most affected by such discrimination or harassment The community knows that the university recognizes the harm caused,” told the newspaper.
The newspaper reported that the students received insulting emojis in group chats and overheard South Asian students asking each other what caste they belonged to before choosing roommates, and started to push for change.
The caste system is estimated to have a history of thousands of years, rooted in the Hindu scriptures of India.
It has long placed Dalits at the bottom of the social hierarchy and once called them “untouchables.” Although India banned caste discrimination in 1950, inequality and violence against Dalits still exist.
Anjali Arondekar, a professor and co-director of the Center for South Asian Studies, said that this practice has spread from outside India to Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and has occurred among Hindus, Muslims, and Muslims. Among Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Buddhists. The study by the University of California, Santa Cruz told the newspaper.
“The caste is really about labor division and inequality that has persisted over the years-really, for thousands of years,” she said.
The caste system in India assigns people their social status when they are born, placing Dalits once called “untouchables” at the bottom of their social hierarchy. They can decide where they live and what schools they can go to. What jobs can they get and where they get married.
Last year, California regulators sued Cisco Systems, claiming that an engineer faced discrimination at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters because he was a Dalit from India.
According to a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the engineer worked with Indians in a team at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters. These Indians all immigrated to the United States as adults and were all of high caste.
The lawsuit stated that “supervisors and colleagues of higher caste introduced discriminatory practices into their teams and Cisco’s workplace” and the company did not “confirm any caste-based or related discrimination or retaliation.”
Cisco Systems, a major supplier of computer network equipment that makes the Internet work, has stated that it will defend the allegations in the complaint.
Castes are usually based on a person’s surname, the village or town that a person comes from, and their religious and social customs.
Prem Pariyar, a 37-year-old graduate student at California State University East Bay, said his family would be personally attacked because of the low caste in his native Nepal. He said that when he moved to the United States in 2015, he least wanted to encounter a caste system.
But when interacting with other South Asians in the Bay Area, he encountered this situation-at his restaurant work, university, community events, and dinners.
He began to organize around this issue with other CSU students, and their efforts prompted the California Student Association, which represents all 23 campuses of CSU, to consider caste as a protected category this year. However, the CSU school system itself has not made any changes to its discrimination policy. Pariyar was also part of the campaign at the University of California, Davis.
“This is a problem, it’s here, it’s time to deal with it,” he said.
