5 ms·

Whether or not it is already accounted for under existing law, this sort of reasoning is about as valid as "the large and vocal constituency against a bill requ

Whether or not it is already accounted for under existing law, this sort of reasoning is about as valid as "the large and vocal constituency against a bill requiring everyone to pledge allegiance to the US is evidence that people aren't loyal to the country" Better evidence would be someone who would have been eligible to bring a case under the new law having been denied justice under the existing laws.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
olliej 3y ago
You mean the many documented examples of caste discrimination who have been unable to do anything because caste discrimination is legal?
- belltaco 3y ago
  > many documented examples Source(s)? Should be easy to link if there are many, and they're documented as you say.
- singlow 3y ago
  I think he means it would be better proof if you simply gave an example case which was dismissed because a Judge ruled that it didn't qualify as a civil rights violation.
  - btilly 3y ago
    That isn't how it works. The issue is that cases are not brought because it is hard to prove it illegal. https://www.equalitylabs.org/castesurvey https://www.equalitylabs.org/castesurvey documents that 2/3 of Dalits in the USA report being mistreated at work. I'm only aware of one lawsuit about it. That was the CISCO case. No federal agencies got involved because it does not fall into race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. Therefore discriminating by caste is legal under federal law. California may be a different story. The case against CISCO is the only one ever brought. You can read about it at https://hulr.org/spring-2021/caste-in-cisco-understanding-caste-in-america https://hulr.org/spring-2021/caste-in-cisco-understanding-ca.... Remember. Only case ever brought, when surveys indicate that 2/3 of Dalits are discriminated against on the job in the USA. And it is definitely legal under federal law. In the absence of any case, ever, saying that it is illegal to discriminate on caste in the USA, it is almost certainly generally legal.
    - belltaco 3y ago
      >In the absence of any case, ever, saying that it is illegal to discriminate on caste in the USA, it is almost certainly generally legal. That's not how it works. You're conflating court cases vs court decisions. > documents that 2/3 of Dalits in the USA report being mistreated at work That's an online self reported survey conducted by a partisan foundation. It certainly didn't cover all Dalits in the US, nor was it a random or representative sample. If there were actually that many people facing discrimination, there would be more court cases, and then you can point to court decisions potentially finding that discrimination by caste is or is not illegal. The absence of such cases and decisions could also be caused by no one being discriminated against on the basis of caste. As linked in some sibling comments, the CISCO case was withdrawn because they didn't find discrimination and were actually discriminating and making assumptions about the alleged perpetuators and publicizing it. Not all forms of discrimination would be illegal even if discrimination on the basis of caste was banned. For example, a Dalit in the poll might have reported as discrimination that a coworker didn't invite them to their home after work but invited a different coworker who wasn't a Dalit. That happens all the time in the US and the world on the basis of race, sex etc. and certainly is not illegal even if provable. Just like the super common racial discrimination in dating that hasn't been made illegal. The examples given on the site in your link are more on the lines of those, stories about being invited to a religious ceremony and not allowed to share meat based food.
      - btilly 3y ago
        That's not how it works. You're conflating court cases vs court decisions. No, I just understand how precedence works in a Common Law system. First, by default things are legal unless specifically forbidden. Being forbidden is based on some theory based upon the law, the Constitution, and a web of precedent called Common Law. In this case, there is no law specifically written covering caste. There is no precedent regarding caste. Therefore any case alleging that it is illegal to discriminate on caste must be based on an untested theory based on the law. There is no particular reason to believe that a judge will accept your theory about the implications of the law, rather than some other theory that the other side comes up with. If you take your theory to court, the other side will almost certainly come up with an opposing case. The judge will be weighing two theories. And likely will also be presented with the argument that the untested theory that discriminating on caste is illegal is untested exactly because other lawyers have consistently concluded that the law doesn't say that it is illegal. This argument is not without merit. I do not know of a clear argument from the law. Maybe there is one that I don't know. But if there was, then I'd expect some prosecuting attorney to have brought it long ago. It doesn't help my confidence that the only attorneys to have brought such a case turned out (as you point out) to have been stretching the facts. What are the odds that they were also stretching the law? Therefore the lack of cases really is evidence that the law really doesn't cover caste. (I'm quite confident that federal law doesn't cover it.)
- addicted 3y ago
  The California govt is literally suing Cisco for caste based discrimination. They clearly don’t think it’s legal.
  - miscaccount 3y ago
    this was dismissed for lack of any evidence. https://theprint.in/opinion/dismissal-of-cisco-case-proves-engineers-were-targetted-because-they-were-hindu-brahmin/1532070/ https://theprint.in/opinion/dismissal-of-cisco-case-proves-e...
    - belltaco 3y ago
      Only stories alleging caste discrimination trend on HN and are assumed to be true. Not when they're withdrawn for lack of evidence, so we can't blame GP for not knowing that.
gameman144 3y ago
The analogy here isn't quite the same though: you can pledge allegiance, but you aren't required to. A bill saying that you are now required would be a change in obligations, and patriotic citizens might still oppose that. This bill, however, is proscriptive: it is saying that you cannot perform an action. It's a hard case to say that we shouldn't put that restriction into law while also believing that discrimination should be restricted.
- tpmoney 3y ago
  The nature of the law isn't relevant to the analogy. The point is that you can't say anything about the current state of the law simply by noting the size of the opposition to a new proposed law. The analogy would work just as well if it were a law that prohibited the killing of children, punishable by generational imprisonment. There are any number of reasons to oppose the introduction of such a law, and none of that would be evidence that killing children is currently legal.
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  I am not familiar with the issue, but to parrot other comments that are, it seems that because caste is not ethnicity or nationality, even having a law that recognizes caste as a difference os a step in the wrong direction. Making certain castes protected under the law has backfired horribly in India, and many do not want to see that repeated.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

olliej 3y ago

You mean the many documented examples of caste discrimination who have been unable to do anything because caste discrimination is legal?

belltaco 3y ago
> many documented examples Source(s)? Should be easy to link if there are many, and they're documented as you say.
singlow 3y ago
I think he means it would be better proof if you simply gave an example case which was dismissed because a Judge ruled that it didn't qualify as a civil rights violation.
- btilly 3y ago
  That isn't how it works. The issue is that cases are not brought because it is hard to prove it illegal. https://www.equalitylabs.org/castesurvey https://www.equalitylabs.org/castesurvey documents that 2/3 of Dalits in the USA report being mistreated at work. I'm only aware of one lawsuit about it. That was the CISCO case. No federal agencies got involved because it does not fall into race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. Therefore discriminating by caste is legal under federal law. California may be a different story. The case against CISCO is the only one ever brought. You can read about it at https://hulr.org/spring-2021/caste-in-cisco-understanding-caste-in-america https://hulr.org/spring-2021/caste-in-cisco-understanding-ca.... Remember. Only case ever brought, when surveys indicate that 2/3 of Dalits are discriminated against on the job in the USA. And it is definitely legal under federal law. In the absence of any case, ever, saying that it is illegal to discriminate on caste in the USA, it is almost certainly generally legal.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    >In the absence of any case, ever, saying that it is illegal to discriminate on caste in the USA, it is almost certainly generally legal. That's not how it works. You're conflating court cases vs court decisions. > documents that 2/3 of Dalits in the USA report being mistreated at work That's an online self reported survey conducted by a partisan foundation. It certainly didn't cover all Dalits in the US, nor was it a random or representative sample. If there were actually that many people facing discrimination, there would be more court cases, and then you can point to court decisions potentially finding that discrimination by caste is or is not illegal. The absence of such cases and decisions could also be caused by no one being discriminated against on the basis of caste. As linked in some sibling comments, the CISCO case was withdrawn because they didn't find discrimination and were actually discriminating and making assumptions about the alleged perpetuators and publicizing it. Not all forms of discrimination would be illegal even if discrimination on the basis of caste was banned. For example, a Dalit in the poll might have reported as discrimination that a coworker didn't invite them to their home after work but invited a different coworker who wasn't a Dalit. That happens all the time in the US and the world on the basis of race, sex etc. and certainly is not illegal even if provable. Just like the super common racial discrimination in dating that hasn't been made illegal. The examples given on the site in your link are more on the lines of those, stories about being invited to a religious ceremony and not allowed to share meat based food.
    - btilly 3y ago
      That's not how it works. You're conflating court cases vs court decisions. No, I just understand how precedence works in a Common Law system. First, by default things are legal unless specifically forbidden. Being forbidden is based on some theory based upon the law, the Constitution, and a web of precedent called Common Law. In this case, there is no law specifically written covering caste. There is no precedent regarding caste. Therefore any case alleging that it is illegal to discriminate on caste must be based on an untested theory based on the law. There is no particular reason to believe that a judge will accept your theory about the implications of the law, rather than some other theory that the other side comes up with. If you take your theory to court, the other side will almost certainly come up with an opposing case. The judge will be weighing two theories. And likely will also be presented with the argument that the untested theory that discriminating on caste is illegal is untested exactly because other lawyers have consistently concluded that the law doesn't say that it is illegal. This argument is not without merit. I do not know of a clear argument from the law. Maybe there is one that I don't know. But if there was, then I'd expect some prosecuting attorney to have brought it long ago. It doesn't help my confidence that the only attorneys to have brought such a case turned out (as you point out) to have been stretching the facts. What are the odds that they were also stretching the law? Therefore the lack of cases really is evidence that the law really doesn't cover caste. (I'm quite confident that federal law doesn't cover it.)
addicted 3y ago
The California govt is literally suing Cisco for caste based discrimination. They clearly don’t think it’s legal.
- miscaccount 3y ago
  this was dismissed for lack of any evidence. https://theprint.in/opinion/dismissal-of-cisco-case-proves-engineers-were-targetted-because-they-were-hindu-brahmin/1532070/ https://theprint.in/opinion/dismissal-of-cisco-case-proves-e...
  - belltaco 3y ago
    Only stories alleging caste discrimination trend on HN and are assumed to be true. Not when they're withdrawn for lack of evidence, so we can't blame GP for not knowing that.

gameman144 3y ago

The analogy here isn't quite the same though: you can pledge allegiance, but you aren't required to. A bill saying that you are now required would be a change in obligations, and patriotic citizens might still oppose that. This bill, however, is proscriptive: it is saying that you cannot perform an action. It's a hard case to say that we shouldn't put that restriction into law while also believing that discrimination should be restricted.

tpmoney 3y ago
The nature of the law isn't relevant to the analogy. The point is that you can't say anything about the current state of the law simply by noting the size of the opposition to a new proposed law. The analogy would work just as well if it were a law that prohibited the killing of children, punishable by generational imprisonment. There are any number of reasons to oppose the introduction of such a law, and none of that would be evidence that killing children is currently legal.
galangalalgol 3y ago
I am not familiar with the issue, but to parrot other comments that are, it seems that because caste is not ethnicity or nationality, even having a law that recognizes caste as a difference os a step in the wrong direction. Making certain castes protected under the law has backfired horribly in India, and many do not want to see that repeated.