Cisco system gets sued by the California regulators as an engineer at their headquarters in Silicon Valley faced discrimination because he is a Dalit Indian. Two of the Dalit man ‘s supervisors were Higher-caste Indians and discriminated and harassed against the employee for being a Dalit Indian and also dark-complexioned.
Caste system has been deeply rooted in Indians. Higher caste, lower castes, untouchable all prevailed for centuries. Though India is a democracy now, there are still people who discriminate against caste in India especially the Dalit’s who were placed at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. Dalit’s were once termed as Untouchables as well. Even after India has banned caste discrimination, violence against Dalit’shas been going on for decades.
One such incident happened at a firm called Cisco in San Jose California where a Dalit man was discriminated against based on his caste. The engineer worked on a team at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters. He was not the only Indian there. There were many other adult Indians who had migrated to the United States to work in the Silicon Valley. All of who belonged to the higher caste based on Indian Caste system.
On Tuesday a lawsuit was filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing addressing the discrimination faced by the Dalit man in the premises of Cisco systems.
Cisco is an American multinational networking hardware company which develops, manufactures and sells networking hardware, software and other high technology products and services including telecommunication equipments.
The lawsuit filed against Cisco systems said that the higher caste supervisors and co-workers imported the discriminatory system’s practices into their team and also their workplace.
It also says that Cisco’s treatment of their employee violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act.
This civil act bans employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The lawsuits also mentions that the employee who was discriminated at the Cisco’s workplace is a Dalit Indian and also that he is dark skinned than the non-Dalit Indians.
The Director of Department of Fair Employment and Housing Society, Kevin Kish said that this behavior is unacceptable in workplaces and that the opportunities are not to be determined by a social status given to us by birth.
The names of two men who were Cisco supervisors and higher-caste Indians were mentioned in the lawsuit. SundarIyer and RamanaKompella are the two men who discriminated and harassed the employee.
The employee’s identity is unknown and is not mentioned in the lawsuit either. The discrimination happened when the Dalit stood up for himself for not getting enough pay and also enoughopportunities compared to the others. He opposed this unlawful practices happening in the firm the two men retaliated against him. The lawsuit also says that Cisco did not take any necessary steps for the prevention of this discrimination.
The suit says that Iyer told other workers that the employee was Dalit and enrolled at India’s prestigious Indian Institute of Technology through affirmative action. After the humiliation and harassment when the Dalit man contacted Human Relations to file a discrimination case against Iyer and Kompella, Iyer took away his responsibilities and made changes to the employee’s role. He also disparaged the other employees and said they should not talk to him and avoids him making the Dalit man isolated from his coworkers. Both the supervisors, continued to discriminate and harass him even after filing with Human relations at Cisco. They would also give the employee assignments that were impossible to complete under given circumstances.
The lawsuit says that Cisco investigated and did not “substantiate any caste-based or related discrimination or retaliation” against the employee. It said it has “robust processes to report and investigate concerns raised by employees,” which it followed in this case, and that it is in compliance with all laws and its own policies. The company said will defend against the allegations in the complaint. Cisco spokeswoman Helen Saunders declined to say if Iyer and Kompella were still at Cisco
Cisco Systems is a networking hardware multinational company with headquarters right in Centre of the Silicon Valley. It is also listed on stock market and is a major supplier of computer networking gear that makes the internet work by providing hardware and software equipments to companies.
By Deepika Agarwal
