Here's Why The Lone Dissenting Seattle City Council Member Termed 'Anti-Caste' Legislation 'Reckless' And 'Unnecessary'

A Seattle city council member who opposed the 'anti-caste' bill, which was recently passed by the body, has said that the legislation is a "reckless, unnecessary and likely harmful solution" without any data or research to back it.

The resolution moved by Kshama Sawant was approved by the Seattle City Council by six to one vote last week.

“It's official: our movement has won a historic, first-in-the-nation ban on caste discrimination in Seattle! Now we need to build a movement to spread this victory around the country,” Sawant, who is the member of Seatttle city council, said soon after the resolution was voted.

The legislation added "caste" as a protected class to the city’s anti-discrimination provisions, making Seattle the first jurisdiction in the United States to do so. 

Sara Nelson, the lone dissenting city council member, has said that the bill, sponsored by Sawant, bypassed the "normal committee vetting process and received just one public discussion".

"I voted no," Nelson said in a statement explaining why she opposed the legislation.

"Caste discrimination is abhorrent, and I oppose it. However, I’m concerned that designating caste as a protected class in Seattle is a reckless, unnecessary, and likely harmful solution when we have no data or research on the prevalence of the problem here in Seattle," she said.

She said that the move was reckless as the legislation "poses legal risk for the city and the likelihood of legal challenge is high".

"It explicitly links caste discrimination with people of South Asian descent and Hinduism in the recitals: “(t)he concept of ‘caste system’ is primarily associated with the South Asian region, where its existence is linked to the religiously sanctioned social structure of Hinduism"," she added.

Nelson noted that there are two active court cases in California currently, with one centering on the claim that tying Hinduism to caste discrimination violates the "Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment" of the US Constitution.

"Speaking as a steward of our public resources, the last thing we need is yet another costly lawsuit – possibly brought by a well-resourced employer in the technology sector, which is also called out in the recitals," she said.

Further, Nelson said that the legislation was unnecessary because while caste is not a standalone protected class in any US jurisdiction, caste identity is associated with religion, race, ancestry, and national origin, so a claim of caste discrimination could be lodged under those existing protected classes.

"In fact, the State of California is doing just that. The other lawsuit in California, brought by the state’s Civil Rights Department, alleges that Cisco Systems “engaged in unlawful employment practices on the bases of religion, ancestry, national origin/ethnicity, and race/color” and that suit is still pending. So, I believe we’re taking a needless legal risk," she added.

Noting that good governance requires that we consider all sides of an issue, Nelson said that the councilmembers only had this bill before them for a short period of fewer than two weeks, and they "received the supporting documents on Friday (before the long weekend".

"A lot of new information has come to light in the past few days, and we’ve received hundreds of emails from constituents of South Asian descent who oppose this legislation," she said.

"This perspective is not represented in any of the materials provided to councilmembers and that’s the main reason I’m concerned," she added.

Finally, while we may have ample documentation of caste discrimination internationally, we have at best contradictory information on its prevalence in the United States, she said.

"Worse, we have no data on the scope of the issue in Seattle," she added.

Nelson also pointed out that most of the city councilmembers who voted on the legislation knew very little about caste, which is a "culturally and historically nuanced concept".

"Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should," Nelson said.

Nelson said that she does not want to be labeled as someone who's not opposed to caste discrimination.

"But I’m not going to take a position out of fear of backlash. Nor will I support something because it seems like a good idea without considering the wider context and divergent viewpoints," she noted.

According to Nelson, the legislation seems to be "driven by interests" that extend beyond the issue of caste discrimination, as evidenced by comments made by Sawant on VHP, RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Further, she also questioned the credibility of the advocacy organisation Equality Labs' survey on which the legislation was based on, even though its data on caste discrimination, according to Nelson, was "discredited" by a "reputable source".

The "reputed source" referred by Nelson was a survey done by Carnegie Endowment, John Hopkins Advanced School of International Studies and Penn University in 2020 in partnership with research and analytics firm YouGov.

The study had found that incidents of caste discrimination are rare in the US with only five percent of all respondents of the survey reported having encountered discrimination due to their caste identity.

Further, the Hindu advocacy organisations in the US have also raised question on the legislation, saying that it was "based on falsehoods and unproven allegations by hate groups such as Equality Labs".

They also alleged that the groups that pushed for the legislation have "called for an open dismantling of the Hindu religion".

Nelson further said, "Much ado was made of Seattle being the first city to prohibit caste discrimination. But being the first to do anything isn’t a strong selling point for me if we’re going to do it poorly".

"Maybe there are sound reasons why other cities and states haven’t already banned caste discrimination outright. Maybe the benefits of Seattle doing so outweigh the potential negative consequences of not doing so. Either way, the legislative process leading up to our vote didn’t afford us the time to find out," she concluded.