(RNS) — A Rutgers University task force on caste discrimination on its campus released its inaugural report last month and recommended adding “caste” as a protected category to anti-discrimination policies at the school.
Audrey Truschke, a professor of South Asian history at Rutgers and co-chair of the task force, said that such a move is only a first step in understanding caste and how it operates at Rutgers, which has a higher-than-average Indian population of any U.S. university, and in the United States at large.
“The vast majority of Americans are in one of two places regarding caste,” said Truschke. “Either they know nothing about it whatsoever, or alternatively, they are only familiar with the caste system into which they were born.”
This situation creates misconceptions, Truschke said, including the idea that caste is only a Hindu concept. “So any opportunity to talk about it, to get the spotlight on it, absolutely I welcome that.”
The task force, consisting of nine faculty and graduate students, published five testimonies of discrimination from Rutgers students and staff who say they experienced caste prejudice. “We included those stories because, to me, they demonstrate that caste exists at Rutgers in a variety of contexts,” said Truschke. “It’s real, and it’s operational. People are suffering it because of it, and their opportunities are being compromised.”
In 2020, Brandeis University became the first U.S. institution of higher education to explicitly bar caste discrimination, and more than 20 U.S. institutions have followed, including Harvard University and the entire California State University system. Last year, a California bill aimed to add caste to the California Civil Rights Department’s list of protected categories, but after demonstrations from Hindus and other groups, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, vetoed it.
Guha Krishnamurthi, an attorney and professor at the University of Maryland, said that despite “a renewed focus and education about caste and the manifestations of caste discrimination,” few have figured out how exactly to fit caste within the “paradigms and frameworks that we understand in the United States.”
“The uneasiness there is that caste isn’t race and it isn’t religion, even though it might have racial and lineage and religious aspects to it,” he said.
Krishnamurthi pointed out that universities’ evolving policies about caste are similar to previous racial and religious discrimination on campus. These issues, he said, have always created questions about students’ and faculty’s free speech rights.
But while initial responses have been “about legislation and rules,” Krishnamurthi said, “It’s actually just all about education.” Over time, as people learn about any form of discrimination, they become alerted to what is a discriminatory act and when to report wrongful behavior.
The administration at Rutgers has approached the question of caste discrimination cautiously. The university at first denied a push by the Rutgers faculty union to add caste to its bias policies. Instead, the school agreed to form a “joint committee to examine issues of caste discrimination impacting students and union members, best practices to respond to caste-based discrimination, and whether to include ‘caste’ as a protected category within its Policy on Discrimination and Harassment.”
The faculty union then elected Truschke as chair of the committee, despite a history of statements about Hindu deities and Hindu nationalists in India that have made her the target of hate campaigns on social media.
Asked about the report, Dory Devlin, a vice president for media relations for the school, said in a statement: “Rutgers stands firmly against discrimination of all types. While the (faculty union) has taken the step of publishing this report, the university will consider its recommendations as it does with all such committees at the appropriate time.”
Some Hindu advocates nonetheless see the Rutgers report as a concerted attempt to negatively label the Hindu community as biased against its own members, or else say that it overstates the prevalence of caste discrimination.
CasteFiles, a think tank “challenging the harmful labeling of Caste in global lexicon,” filed a federal civil rights complaint against Rutgers and Truschke on Thursday (Aug. 29), arguing that the task force violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”
The move, said CasteFiles co-founder Richa Gautam, comes after years of fighting the uphill battle to educate institutions on the harm of the term itself. “Caste, because of years and years of academic indoctrination, it is associated with Hinduism. So when you impose that, you’re colonizing our children all over again,” she said.
The testimonies included in the report, CasteFiles charges, are “anecdotal hearsay” and the think tank complains that Truschke’s role demonstrates the university’s “apathy” toward its Hindu students. Gautam points to an open letter penned by “concerned Hindu students and allies at Rutgers Newark and New Brunswick” highlighting Truschke’s “personal biases.”
“The caste discourse has created a lot of angst and discomfort for Hindu students, not just in Rutgers, but in other colleges,” said Gautam, who conducted focus groups on several college campuses after caste discrimination was added to their laws. She said that after Brandeis added its rule she observed “a quietening down of Hindu student participation” in campus life.
“It’s like, put your head down, do your homework, do your academic work, and then, just get going. We owe it to our Indian American students to feel safe,” she said.
Abhijit Bagal, Gautam’s co-founder, said the group could rescind the Title VI complaint if the task force agrees to eliminate all mentions of region or religion that can be traced to the “Hindu caste system.”
He also opposes the use of the term “caste” itself. “If the supposedly noble intent is to prohibit all forms of discrimination based on class or social status, which also includes caste discrimination, why not use a generic term like ‘inherited class or social status’?” he said. “It is facially neutral, includes not only caste but also any other advantages or disadvantages based on parentage or ancestry, and is equally applicable to all Americans.
“Instead, deliberate usage of the loaded term ‘caste’ coupled with Hindu archetypal terms like ‘Dalit’, ‘varna’, ‘Brahmin’ etc. maliciously and purposefully intends to target and racially profile Hindu Americans,” Bagal added in a written statement.
Krishnamurthi understands why many Hindus are upset about popular rhetoric about caste discrimination but said opponents of caste discrimination measures “shouldn’t be fearful,” as cases of caste discrimination will be “sussed out” by the legal system in the same way all discrimination cases are. A case filed in 2020 against two Cisco Systems engineers charging caste discrimination, he offers, was voluntarily dismissed for lack of evidence.
“I think what’s going to matter so much more are schools and workplaces saying, ‘Here are the rules of engagement at our institution,’” he said. “Follow them, not because you’ll be sanctioned, but follow them because that’s what it is to be a good citizen in this institution. My students, they want to know, am I doing something that could be offensive to another person? That’s the kind of thing I find inspiring and encouraging.”