Rutgers University Task Force Recommends Including Caste as a Protected Category
- In a report released earlier this month, the task force highlighted the consequences of allowing caste-based discrimination to continue unchecked.
A Rutgers University task force has recommended including caste as a protected category in its nondiscrimination policy. In a report released earlier this month, the task force demonstrated the need for the policy and outlined its likely impact on students, staff, and faculty. It also highlighted the consequences of allowing caste-based discrimination to continue unchecked.
Set up last year, the task force was chaired by Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at the Rutgers’ Newark campus, and Corinne Castro, senior director for faculty diversity and institutional transformation, and included seven others who authored the report.
“The report tracks the addition of caste as a protected category at U.S. universities, showing that Rutgers has strong precedents in taking this step as a public institution of higher education,” Truschke told American Kahani. “As the report notes, Rutgers stands to be a leader in addressing caste on campus through robust programming.”
Truschke noted that the task force defined caste as “a global category that exists in many communities and their diasporas worldwide,” and noted that “many Americans are either unaware of caste entirely or only familiar with the specific caste system into which they were born.” For these both groups, “there is much to learn regarding the global category of caste and its nuanced operations in specific communities and contexts,” she continued. “Our report offers resources and some solid starting points for grasping caste and its harms in American higher education.”
At Rutgers, the task force spoke to many students who shared their experiences with caste-based discrimination, but preferred to stay anonymous, unwilling to be publicly identified. “We collect anecdotal data on caste-based discrimination at Rutgers University,” Truschke said. “These testimonies, included in full in the report, show that caste is part of life at Rutgers University for some students and faculty,” which is unacceptable and cuts against Rutgers commitments to academic excellence and equity,” she said. But the task force “lacked the ability to conduct a systematic survey of caste on campus, and we call upon the administration to pursue collecting further data.,” she added.
The caste-oppressed “often go to great lengths to try to hide their caste, in the hopes of avoiding social stigma, ostracization, or lost opportunities,” the report said. It cited journalist and activist Yashica Dutt who has written about attempting to “pass as upper caste” in her memoir coming out as Dalit.” Another example was Siddhant, a Meta employee in California, who “attested in 2022 that he hides his caste out of fear of social shame and facing negative consequences at work.”
Some of the reasons for the anonymity is the “fear and share” they could feel “around their caste being outed,” the task force said. Additionally, they fear “being ostracized in educational settings (as students), especially by peers,” or “being denied service in local businesses or places of worship,” or “discrimination in interpersonal relationships,” or “verbal and physical attacks.”
With these conclusions, the task force made key recommendations in the report including the need to create “wide-ranging educational opportunities to create awareness and change regarding caste”; and “collect further data on caste-based discrimination on campus.” Three of the four recommendations “unanimously passed the committee, and adding caste as an independent protected category was endorsed by 3/4 of the voting committee members,” Truschke said.
In 2019 December, Brandeis University became one of the first higher education institutions in America to add caste to its nondiscrimination policy. In January 2022 California State University (CSU) became the first university system in the U.S. to add caste to its anti-discrimination policy.
In December 2022, Brown University became the first Ivy League school to add caste to its campus-wide nondiscrimination policy. A year earlier, Harvard University instituted caste protections for student workers last year as part of its contract with the Harvard Graduate Student Union.
(Top photo: anti-caste group at Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania).