California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday vetoed a bill highly watched by the South Asian community that would have banned discrimination on the basis of caste — a system of social hierarchy that dictates a person’s standing from the time they’re born.
Newsom called the bill “unnecessary” in his veto message, saying existing laws already prohibit such discrimination.
If passed, Senate Bill 403 would have made California the first state in the nation to explicitly acknowledge caste in its civil rights code.
Seattle and Fresno have passed such bans in recent months, reflecting growing awareness among officials as South Asian tech workers and university students in California have become more vocal about the biases they’ve faced. Advocates for the bill included Dalits, caste-oppressed people of South Asian descent, as well as members of the Oaxacan and Indigenous communities who say they have been discriminated against by a similar system. The Ravidassia community, which follows a 14th century Indian guru who preached caste equality and had Dalit roots, also spoke out for the bill.
Some Hindu Americans — a number of which have ties to right-wing Hindu nationalist groups in India — had pushed back against the bill, saying it singled them out as potential perpetrators of discrimination. California Republican Sens. Brian Jones of Santee and Shannon Grove of Bakersfield sent a letter this week to Newsom urging him to veto the bill, saying it would “jeopardize our state’s innovative edge.”
“We hope to move forward without hatred or malice to bring together our community which SB-403 so unnecessarily divided,” Hindu American Foundation Executive Director Suhag Shukla said in a statement after Newsom’s veto.
Advocates for the bill had been on a hunger strike in front of the Capitol Annex building for more than a month, holding rallies where hundreds gathered in support.
“Civil rights is not divisive,” said hunger striker Thenmozhi…
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