Anti-Caste Discrimination Bill Easily Passes California Senate

A bill that would prohibit discrimination based on caste status passed the California Senate on Thursday with only one opposing vote.

The chamber voted 34-1 for the legislation (S.B. 403) sponsored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D) that would add caste as a protected characteristic under California’s civil rights act and other statutes. The legislation defines caste as “an individual’s perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status.”

The measure now heads to the Assembly.

Wahab, the first Afghan American woman elected to the state Senate, wrote she was spurred to act because her Dalit constituents, whose families have immigrated from South Asia, have experienced caste bias and “adding the term will strengthen our laws and make clear that California does not tolerate any type of discrimination.”

Supporters cited a 2002 recommendation from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, whose organizing treaty the United States ratified in 1994. It affirmed that “descent” based discrimination includes “caste and analogous systems of inherited status which nullify or impair” one’s enjoyment of their human rights.

The bill would apply to “all caste systems, regardless of the origin of the system,” according to a bill analysis from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Hindu American Foundation argued that despite its purported neutrality, “popular American culture treats caste as an exclusively South Asian phenomenon,” and singling out caste would become another locus point for anti-Asian bias and, for the purpose of enforcing the law, require people of South Asian descent to counter-intuitively identify with a caste.

The Hindu advocacy group also said the bill would force India’s caste-related laws on California residents “absent a historical or current legal basis to regulate caste in the United States,” and invite intrusive scrutiny on those of South Asian descent.

Republican Minority Leader Brian Jones was the only no vote, saying he “remained unconvinced” that the bill is necessary given “our current laws in California that are protective” of race.

During debate over the bill, Wahab said in session “clearly, we hit a nerve.”