Seattle has turn out to be the primary US metropolis to ban caste discrimination as its council added caste to the anti-discrimination legal guidelines. Supporters of the ordinance mentioned that case discrimination crosses nationwide and non secular boundaries and that with out such legal guidelines, these dealing with caste discrimination can have no protections.

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Town council members voted as activists and organizers on completely different sides of the difficulty started arriving in Seattle. Earlier, greater than 100 individuals had put in requests to talk on the assembly as a number of activists waited for his or her likelihood to talk to the council earlier than the vote.

Council Member Kshama Sawant, the one Indian American on the Seattle Metropolis Council, mentioned that the ordinance doesn’t single out one neighborhood. Over the previous three years, a number of faculties and college methods have moved to ban caste discrimination in the USA.

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In December 2019, Brandeis College turned the primary US faculty to incorporate caste in its nondiscrimination coverage and California State College System, Colby School, Brown College and the College of California, Davis have all adopted related measures.

Harvard College additionally included caste protections for pupil employees in 2021 as a part of its contract with its graduate pupil union.

The measure in Seattle has the help of Dalit activist-led organizations like Equality Labs amongst others, Related Press reported. Opposition to this ordinance got here from teams such because the Hindu American Basis and the Coalition of Hindus of North America, the report added.