(RNS) — Rutgers University’s campus caste discrimination task force released its first report last month and recommended adding “caste” as a protected category to the university’s anti-discrimination policy.

Audrey Truschke, a professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University and co-chair of the working group, said such a move is only the first step in understanding caste and how it operates at Rutgers University, which has a higher than average Hindu population among all U.S. universities, as well as the U.S. as a whole.

“The vast majority of Americans fall into one of two places when it comes to caste,” Truschke said. “They either know nothing about it or they only know the caste system they were born into.”

The situation breeds misconceptions, Truschke said, including the idea that caste is just a Hindu concept. “So any opportunity to talk about it, to bring attention to it, is absolutely welcome.”

The task force, made up of nine faculty and graduate students, released five testimonies of discrimination from Rutgers students and staff who say they have experienced caste bias. “We included these stories because I think they show that caste exists at Rutgers in a variety of contexts,” Truschke said. “It’s real, and it works. People are suffering because of it, and their opportunities are being jeopardized.”

In 2020, Brandeis University became the first American institution of higher learning to explicitly ban caste discrimination, and more than 20 American institutions have followed suit, including Harvard University and the entire California State University system. Last year, a California bill sought to add caste to the California Civil Rights Department’s list of protected categories, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it after demonstrations by Hindus and other groups.

Guha Krishnamurthi, a lawyer and professor at the University of Maryland, said that despite the “renewed focus“When it comes to education about caste and manifestations of caste discrimination,” few know how to accurately fit caste into “the paradigms and frameworks that we understand in the United States.”

“The concern is that caste is not synonymous with race or religion, although it may have racial, clan and religious aspects,” he said.

Krishnamurthi noted that the universities’ evolving caste policies are similar to earlier racial and religious discrimination on campus. These issues, he said, have always raised questions about the rights of students and faculty to free speech.

Although the initial responses were as follows:“about legislation and regulations,” Krishnamurthi said, “it’s really just about education.” In time, as People learn about any form of discrimination, become aware of what constitutes an act of discrimination and when to report inappropriate behaviour.

The Rutgers administration has been cautious about addressing caste discrimination. Initially, the university denied pressure from the Rutgers faculty union to add caste to its bias policy. Instead, the school agreed to form “a joint committee to examine caste discrimination affecting students and union members, best practices for responding to caste discrimination, and whether to include ‘caste’ as a protected category in its Discrimination and Harassment Policy.”

The faculty union elected Truschke to chair the committee despite her past statements about Hindu deities and Hindu nationalists in India that made her the target of a hate campaign on social media.

Asked about the report, Dory Devlin, vice president of media relations at the school, said in a statement: “Rutgers strongly opposes discrimination of any kind. While (the faculty union) has taken the step of releasing this report, the university will consider its recommendations, as it does with all such committees, in due course.”

Some Hindu rights activists, however, believe the Rutgers report is a deliberate attempt to negatively characterize the Hindu community as being prejudiced against its own members or that it exaggerates the scale of caste discrimination.

CasteFiles, a think tank “challenging the harmful labeling of caste in the global lexicon,” filed a federal civil rights complaint against Rutgers and Truschke on Thursday (August 29), arguing that the working group violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”

The move, said CasteFiles co-founder Richa Gautam, comes after years of hard-fought efforts to educate institutions about the harmfulness of the term itself. “Caste, because of years and years of academic indoctrination, is associated with Hinduism. So when you impose that, you’re re-colonizing our children,” she said.

CasteFiles charges that the testimonies in the report are “anecdotal gossip,” while the think tank complains that Truschke’s role shows the university’s “apathy” toward its Indian students. Gautam points to an open letter written by “c“former Indian students and allies from Rutgers Newark and New Brunswick,” which highlights Truschke’s “personal biases.”

“The caste discussion has created a lot of anxiety and discomfort among Hindu students, not just at Rutgers but at other colleges,” said Gautam, who conducted focus groups on several college campuses after caste discrimination was added to their laws. She said she saw a “silencing of Hindu student participation” in campus life after Brandeis added its provision.

“It’s like you put your head down, did your homework, did your academic work, and then just got down to business.”. “Our responsibility to Indian-American students is to make them feel safe,” she said.

Abhijit Bagal, co-founder of Gautama, said the group could withdraw its Title VI complaint if the task force agreed to eliminate any mention of region or religion that could be linked to the “Hindu caste system.”

He also objects to the use of the term “caste” itself. “If the supposedly noble intention is to prohibit all forms of discrimination based on class or social status, which includes caste discrimination, why not use a general term such as ‘inherited class or social status’?” he said. “It is ostensibly neutral, encompassing not only caste but also any other advantages or disadvantages based on descent or ancestry, and is equally applicable to all Americans.

“Instead, the deliberate and malicious use of the derogatory term ‘caste’ in conjunction with archetypal Hindu terms such as ‘Dalit,’ ‘Varna,’ ‘Brahmin,’ etc. is intended to racially profile Hindu-Americans,” Bagal added in a written statement.

Krishnamurthi understands why many Hindus are irritated by popular rhetoric about caste discrimination, but said opponents of caste discrimination measures “should not fear” because caste discrimination cases will be “dealt with” by the legal system in the same way as all discrimination cases. A case filed in 2020 against two Cisco Systems engineers alleging caste discrimination was voluntarily dismissed due to lack of evidence, he said.

“I think it’s going to be much more important for schools and workplaces to say, ‘Here are the rules of engagement in our institution,’” he said.Follow them, not because you’ll be punished, but because that’s what it means to be a good citizen in this institution. My students want to know, am I doing something that could offend someone else? Those are the things I find inspiring and encouraging.”