Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have made California the first state in the nation to outlaw discrimination based on caste.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have made California the first U.S. state to outlaw caste-based discrimination.

Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent. Those at the lowest strata of the caste system, known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.

Earlier this year, Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. On Sept. 28, Fresno became the second U.S. city and the first in California to prohibit discrimination based on caste by adding caste and indigeneity to its municipal code.

In his message Newsom called the bill “unnecessary,” explaining that California “already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.”

  • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
    5•9 months ago

    We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

    I wonder if that was applied to everybody.

    • MelodiousFunk
      0•9 months ago

      Well it says “all Men.” Explicitly excluding women and children. Of course one can argue that that the literal text wasn’t what was really intended by the founders. That would be “all White land-owning Men.” 250 years later, that intention is still writ large on American society, even though we like to pretend that “they obviously meant ‘all People.’”

      Here’s hoping the California legislature can override that veto.