this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
307 points (95.8% liked)

News

23400 readers
4061 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
 

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have made California the first U.S. state to outlaw caste-based discrimination.

Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent. Those at the lowest strata of the caste system, known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.

Earlier this year, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. On Sept. 28, Fresno became the second U.S. city and the first in California to prohibit discrimination based on caste by adding caste and indigeneity to its municipal code.

In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “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.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"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.

[–] thedirtyknapkin 18 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There will always be a lawyer who will use any ridiculous argument to get their client off, that is literally their function. By the same argument the opposing counsel can point to the governors statement that other laws should be applicable, can't they?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A governor's statement isn't codified in law. It's just the opinion of an official.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Sure, but I'd love to hear a smart lawyer use a governor's statement while arguing before a jury.

[–] halcyoncmdr 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] legion02 2 points 1 year ago

In that case the difference is one of severity both of the crime and the punishment. If you're not making caste discrimination a more serious offense than regular discrimination (which I don't think we should) then the law is redundant.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I read this as hammering (🔨) and I was like... we have a law specifically for that??

[–] themeatbridge 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can the existing laws be applied to caste discrimination? They haven't been so far.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do we know that? Is there case law?

[–] themeatbridge 2 points 1 year ago

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?

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] assassin_aragorn 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] Death_Equity 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are they being applied to caste discrimination though?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.