New Delhi: California Governor Gavin Newsom Saturday vetoed a bill that would have specifically outlawed caste discrimination in the US state, citing the fact that discrimination of any kind was already prohibited there.
Senate Bill 403 would have inserted caste into the definition of ancestry, thereby explicitly prohibiting discrimination in a bouquet of associated laws including the Unruh Civil Rights Act, Fair Employment and Housing Act and education discrimination law, Politico reported.
“In California, we believe everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter who they are, where they come from, who they love, or where they live,” Newsom said in a communication to the Senate.
He also said that the legislation was “unnecessary” since discrimination based on caste is “already prohibited under various categories” including “sex, race, colour, 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”.
The bill was spearheaded by Aisha Wahab, a Californian Senator representing the 10th District, that includes parts of north-western Silicon Valley and cities like Fremont and Santa Clara in the state.
If Newsom had signed the bill, California would have become the first state in the US to outlaw discrimination based on caste.
The bill was opposed by several groups, including the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). An advocacy group based out of Washington D.C, HAF had in a letter to Wahab called it a bill that would result in “unconstitutional denial of equal protection and due process to South Asians”. According to the HAF, there are 3.2 million Hindu Americans of Indian origin living in the US, with 5,28,000 present in the state of California.
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‘Ensuring American dream is accessible to all’
Wahad had in a statement dated 5 July, 2023, said: “This bill is about workers’ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights. This bill is about ensuring the American dream is accessible to all those who pursue it.”
She acknowledged that the bill was one of the most high-profile bills being discussed by the state legislature — underpinned by a record-number of people who commented on the bill at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April 2023.
According to her statement, the bill was supported by the South Asian Bar Association of North America, Stop AAPI Hate, American Civil Liberties Union, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, California Labor Federation, Alphabet Workers Union, MeToo International, among others.
However, two Republican Senators saw the bill differently.
In a letter to Newsom, sent on 3 October, 2023, state Senators Brian Jones and Shannon Grove requested the governor to veto the bill. They argued that the bill “will not only target and racially profile South Asian Californians, but will put other California residents and businesses at risk and jeopardise our state’s innovative edge”.
On Newsom’s veto, HAF MD Samir Kalra wrote on X: “With the stroke of his pen, Governor Newsom has averted a civil rights and constitutional disaster that would have put a target on hundreds of thousands of Californians simply because of their ethnicity or their religious identity, as well as create a slippery slope of facially discriminatory laws.”
Samir Kalra, HAF Managing Director stated:
“Today, we at the Hindu American Foundation join South Asians across California and the Hindu American community in offering our heartfelt appreciation to California Governor Gavin Newsom for his historically important veto of SB-403.…
— Hindu American Foundation (@HinduAmerican) October 7, 2023
The vetoed bill was one of many efforts across the US to ensure the prohibition of discrimination based on caste across the country.
In February 2023, Seattle became the first city in the US to outlaw caste-based discrimination after its local council passed a resolution to add caste to the city’s anti-discrimination laws.
And in March 2023, Toronto District School Board reportedly became the first in Canada to recognise the existence of caste-based discrimination in the city’s schools and asked a provincial human rights body to help in establishing a framework to combat the issue.
Fresno, a city in California became the second US city to outlaw caste discrimination this September, when the city council unanimously voted to add caste and indigeneity as protected categories in its municipal code, according to a report by Reuters.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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