The passage by the Seattle city council of an ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of caste marks a fresh frontier in the clash between civil rights and religion, as traditions from a distant continent make landfall on American shores — and in American law.  

Now, in the Emerald City, caste has been added to the anti-discrimination roster alongside race, gender, sexual orientation, and other traits of protected groups. Businesses will be prohibited from discriminating based on caste when it comes to housing, employment, and public spaces.  

The bill, which passed by a 6-to-1 vote, was spearheaded by Kshama Sawant, who belongs to the Socialist Alternative party and runs beneath the banner of “Fight Oppression” and “Fight Capitalism.” She calls for a “movement to spread this victory around the country.” 

Ms. Sawant, who herself hails from the Brahmin — the highest — caste, argues that the “fight against caste discrimination is deeply connected to the fight against all forms of oppression, and against the economic exploitation of the vast majority of people under capitalism.”

The caste system is more than 3,000 years old. It is attested to in the “Manu-smriti,” the authoritative text of Hindu law. According to the BBC, “for centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life.” The system divides adherents into  Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and the Shudras, with the Dalit, or “untouchables,” outside the system altogether.

It is the fate of the Dalit that has prompted efforts to abolish the caste system. Outlawing the caste system was formally achieved in India in 1948, and enshrined in that country’s constitution of 1950, though the system abides in a de facto sense to this day. 

Equality Labs, an organization dedicated to “ending caste apartheid” and working to advance “dynamic south Asian feminist futures,” argues that caste discrimination is a persistent problem. It says that overall, two out of every three Dalits in America report being “treated unfairly at their workplace.” 

The enduring salience of caste has roiled Silicon Valley. Apple includes caste in its anti-discrimination policy, as does IBM. A California state court is hearing a case where caste discrimination is alleged against Cisco Systems by a Sunshine State employment agency.  

Banning discrimination on the basis of caste has picked up steam on college campuses as well. Brandeis was the first, in 2019. A professor who led the effort there, Laurence Simon, admitted that “we did not hear of any serious allegations of caste discrimination” but did not want to wait “for there to be a horrendous problem.” In 2021, Harvard University instituted caste protections for student employees.

Some Americans of Indian descent contend that targeting discrimination on the basis of caste is itself a form of racial targeting. In a statement, the Hindu American Federation noted that the Seattle ordinance “unfairly singles out and targets an entire community on the basis of their national origin and ancestry for disparate treatment.”

While the “movement” called for by Ms. Sawant has thus far been largely confined to localities and campuses, legal sages are building the case for its federal infrastructure. An article in the Harvard Law Review argues that “caste discrimination is cognizable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

The authors of that article, Charanya Krishnaswami and Guha Krishnamurthi, argue that “caste discrimination is a type of racial discrimination, religious discrimination, and national origin discrimination,” and thus deserving of protection nationwide. Its religious dimension is attributable to its being “rooted in Hinduism.” 

In arguing that caste deserves a place in the suite of anti-discrimination protections, Messrs. Krishnaswami and Krishnamurthi point to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Caste, they suggest, could be next.

In the realm of ideas, the link between race and caste has been traced by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Isabel Wilkerson, who argues that American history is best seen through the prism of caste, a “term that gets at the underlying infrastructure” that “is there undergirding much of the inequality and injustices and disparities that we live with in this country.”