Newsom Vetoes California’s First-in-Nation Ban on Caste Bias

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed a bill to ban discrimination based on caste in employment, housing, and education, after the measure drew both vocal support and heated opposition from the state’s South Asian population.

The legislation (SB 403) would have defined the state’s existing protections against ancestry discrimination to include “lineal descent, heritage, parentage, caste, or any inherited social status.” It would have made California the first state in the US to specifically treat caste as a protected category in its civil rights law, effective Jan. 1, 2024.

Seattle became the first US city to specifically ban caste discrimination in February, as the issue gains growing awareness particularly within the technology industry. Caste is a system of rigid social stratification that’s estimated to affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, especially but not limited to people of South Asian descent.

Expanding state law to specifically include caste is unnecessary because caste is already covered under existing categories of bias protections, Newsom said in a veto message Saturday.

While some lawyers agree with Newsom, there’s little or no case law to affirm that existing bias protections apply to caste in California or nationally.

The California measure had broad support from labor unions and other left-leaning organizations, including the Alphabet Workers Union. But Hindu, Sikh, and other South Asian groups were divided on the proposal, according to a Senate analysis listing supporters and opponents.

Some groups argued for the need to clarify legal protections and condemn the centuries-old practices of caste bias, while others said the law would stigmatize and single out their religions and nationalities as not only the victims of discrimination, but also the oppressors.

-with reporting assistance from Andrew Oxford in Sacramento