Washington: The California state assembly has enacted a bill that aims to fight caste prejudice and increase protections for disadvantaged communities all around the state. In the assembly, the bill was approved. As soon as California's governor Gavin Newsom signs it into law, caste will become a protected class under the nation's anti-discrimination laws, making it the first state in the union to do so.
The bill seeks to combat caste discrimination and strengthen protections for marginalised communities across the state. A coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) described it as a black day in California history. The legislation will revise California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, Education, and Housing codes by adding caste as a protected category under “ancestry.” “The assembly vote is a win for the ages,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs.
According to CoHNA, the passage of a statute that is NOT facially neutral and was crafted expressly to target Hindu Americans is the most recent in a long line of unjust laws that have been used to target minorities of colour, such as the Asian Exclusion Act. “This bill is worse since it ignored the mounting body of evidence about the overreach of CRD in the Cisco lawsuit, the flawed data from a hate group that underpinned the whole effort, the championing of this bill by foreign actors and the rising numbers of Dalit and Bahujan voices speaking against it,” it said.