Jun 06, 2022 07:00:00

Google cancels talk on 'caste discrimination', spokeswoman claims 'caste discrimination does not exist in our workplace'

There is an identification system called

caste based on Hindu teachings in India, and among them, people outside the caste system called untouchables (Dalits) face severe discrimination. Such a caste system has been inherited by the Indian community who have migrated overseas, and caste discrimination has become a problem even for technology companies in Silicon Valley . Meanwhile, Google canceled the caste discrimination talk by human rights activists at the last minute, the Washington Post, an American daily, reports.

Google canceled a talk on caste bias by Thenmozhi Soundararajan after some employees revolted --The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/02/google-caste-equality-labs-tanuja-gupta/

The talk was canceled by Google by Thenmozhi Soundararajan , the founder of Equality Labs, a non-profit organization that defends the human rights of Dalits and lower castes. Soundararajan is a human rights activist from Dalit, and despite attending the University of California in the United States, he was discriminated against by Indian professors on campus when he made public that he was a Dalit. Oakland, California-based Equality Labs has advocated for the protection of Dalit civil rights and has also appealed to Silicon Valley companies, which have a large number of engineers from India, to eliminate caste discrimination.

Requests for lectures to Equality Labs increased in the wake of the George Floyd incident that occurred in 2020, and Mr. Soundararajan said that he has given lectures on caste discrimination at companies such as Microsoft, Airbnb, Netrflix, Adobe, Salesforce. And in April 2022, we were planning to give a talk to Google News employees at the invitation of Tanuja Gupta, Senior Manager of Google News.

Gupta was once one of the leaders in Google walkout , protesting the company's improper response to the sexual harassment issue by Google executives . In September 2021, Gupta invited Soundararajan to a lecture on diversity equity and inclusion in Google News after being consulted by two Google employees about caste discrimination witnessed internally.

However, two days before Soundararajan gave a talk, seven employees sensationally told Google executives and Gupta how they were hurt by the caste fairness debate and how they felt life-threatening. I sent an e-mail that appeals in various words. The email also contained information that was copied from a known fake news site and damaged Soundararajan's reputation.

Soundararajan said Western institutions unfamiliar with the caste issue were surprised by this internal backlash, saying, 'Are there people in our community who are backlashing? Maybe we shouldn't dig into this problem. It may be, 'he pointed out. In the end, the talk at Google was postponed for a while and then disappeared.

So Gupta launched an in-house website to revive Soundararajan's talk and called on about 8,000 South Asian employees to sign. It is said that more than 400 Google employees participated in this signature, but some employees said that 'caste discrimination does not exist', 'caste does not matter in the United States', and 'raise awareness of the caste problem in the United States'. There were also counterarguments such as 'attempts lead to further division', 'attempts to close the disparity between castes are reverse discrimination against upper castes', and 'lower castes lack education to interpret Hindu scriptures'.

And on May 12, Google's Human Resources department was warned by Gupta that it 'violated the code of conduct' and was instructed to remove part of its internal website and lowered its performance rating. Was also reported. After that, Gupta met with Google's Vice President and Soundararajan, but it was not clear why Soundararajan's talk was rejected and how the review was done. That's right.

When Gupta told a colleague about a series of events, he said, 'Seniors have been waiting for you for an opportunity to do this for years (when they hosted Google walkout).' That. In the end, Gupta decided to leave Google and sent a (PDF file)

document describing the sequence of events to Google employees and shared it with The Washington Post.

'In Google,'retaliation' has become a norm to deal with internal criticism, and women suffer from it,' Gupta said in a statement, including himself and Soundararajan in this case. Allegedly four women of color were harassed and stopped. Google has also accused Thunder Pichai , who was born and raised in a top caste family in India and is familiar with the caste system, tolerate caste discrimination despite being the CEO. In addition, Mr. Soundararajan sent a letter (PDF file) about the lecture to CEO Pichai, but CEO Pichai did not reply to this.

'Pichai is an Indian and Brahmin (top caste) and grew up in Tamil Nadu, India. It's impossible to grow up in Tamil Nadu and not know about the caste system,' said Soundararajan. If he can make a passionate statement about Google's Diversity Equity & Inclusion commitment in the wake of the George Floyd incident, he should make the same promise in the context of his privilege, 'he told the Washington Post. rice field.

by Finnish Government

Regarding a range of issues, Google spokeswoman Shannon Newbury said, 'There is no caste discrimination in our workplace, and our workplace has a very clear policy on retaliation and discrimination. Yes, and publicly shared. We have decided not to move forward with a lecture that creates division and anger, rather than bringing the community together and raising awareness. '