US court spikes caste bias case against Cisco

While the CRD has voluntarily sought the dismissal of the case against the two Indian-American employees of Cisco, it is still processing the case against the US-based tech company. The reason for the CRD’s move wasn’t immediately known.

The two Cisco supervisors, Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella, were accused in the department’s lawsuit of discriminating and harassing an employee, who belonged to the Dalit community, on the basis of caste.

The Santa Clara Superior County Court dismissed the case on April 10.

A few months ago, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) had filed a petition in the same court, asserting that CRD’s case against Cisco and the engineers infringed on the civil rights of Hindus living in California. Due to the stigma and potential threats of violence associated with a person’s status as Dalit, CRD requested that the employee be identified by the placeholder name “John Doe”.

“Two Indian-Americans endured a nearly three-year nightmare of unending investigations, a brutal online witch hunt, and a presumption of guilt in the media after the CRD sullied their reputation alleging that they engaged in discrimination based on caste,” HAF executive director Suhag Shukla said in a statement.

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According to the HAF, court records showed that Iyer, the CEO of a division at the company, was accused of harassment on the basis of caste despite evidence that he actively recruited the complainant. Iyer also hired at least one other self-identified Dalit who held one of the only three leadership positions in the division. This individual was offered the other two leadership positions as well, prior to Doe filing his discrimination complaint.“Court filings clearly indicate that CRD was aware of the diversity within the division and despite over eight years of Doe’s employment, CRD was unable to allege anything against Iyer or Kompella that legally or factually constituted harassment,” said the HAF statement.

On October 16, 2020, the department filed a lawsuit under the California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act against Cisco and the two managers for caste-based discrimination, harassment and retaliation. The lawsuit alleged the defendants discriminated against an engineer at Cisco’s San Jose campus because he was Dalit.

In a social media post, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of US-based Dalit civil rights organisation Equality Labs, said: “The Cisco case has given so many Dalits the courage to come forward with their stories about caste discrimination in education, the medical and tech industries.”

The lawsuit against Cisco will go to mediation on May 2. It accuses the tech giant of permitting caste-based discrimination and creating a hostile workplace. Since the case was filed, Cisco has introduced caste to its FY22 ‘Code of Business Conduct’, prohibiting conduct that singles out an employee or a group of employees in a negative way based on characteristics “that have been the basis for historical marginalisation”.