SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers on Tuesday voted to outlaw discrimination based on caste, adding protections for people of South Asian descent who say they have been left out of traditional American safeguards for fairness in employment and housing.

The bill — the first of its kind in the U.S. — now heads to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who must decide whether to sign it into law.

Caste is an ancient, complex system that regulates people’s social status based on their birth. It’s primarily associated with India and Hinduism, but caste-based divisions are also found in other faiths and countries.

State and federal laws already ban discrimination based on sex, race and religion. California’s civil rights law goes further by outlawing discrimination based on things like medical conditions, genetic information, sexual orientation, immigration status and ancestry.

Tuesday, the state Senate voted 31-5 to approve a bill that would redefine “ancestry” to include “lineal descent, heritage, parentage, caste, or any inherited social status.” The bill was authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab, the first Muslim and Afghan-American woman elected to the state Legislature.

“Caste discrimination will not be tolerated in California,” she said.

India has banned caste discrimination since 1948, the year after it won independence from Great Britain. In recent years, South Asians have been pushing for caste protections on the U.S. Many major U.S. colleges and universities have added caste to their non-discrimination policies, including the University of California and California State University systems. In February, Seattle became the first U.S. city to ban discrimination based on caste.

Now, California could become the first state to do so. The bill easily passed the Legislature, with only a few dissenting votes. But the proposal provoked an intense response from the state’s South Asian community. A public hearing on the bill this summer lasted hours as hundreds of people lined up around the Capitol to testify for and against the bill.

Opponents argued the bill is unfair because it only applies to people in a caste-based system. A letter to state lawmakers from the Hindu American Foundation earlier this year worried that South Asians could be “forced to answer intrusive questions about or be judged for who they are married to.”

“This bill targets Hindus and east Indians,” said state Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield who voted against the bill on Tuesday.

California lawmakers are in the final two weeks of the legislative session. Lawmakers have until Sept. 14 to act on nearly 1,000 bills. When lawmakers finish, Newsom will have a month to decide whether to sign those bills into law.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday sued SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and people granted asylum.

The complaint, filed in an administrative court within the department, asserts that SpaceX wrongly claimed that federal export control laws barred it from hiring anyone but U.S. citizens and permanent residents. As a result, it discouraged refugees and asylum grantees from applying for jobs at the company, according to the complaint.

Export controls typically aim to protect U.S. national security and to further national trade objectives. They bar the shipment of specific technologies, weapons, information and software to specific non-U.S. nations and also limit the sharing or release of such items and information to “U.S. persons.” But the Justice Department noted that the term includes not only U.S. citizens, but also permanent U.S. residents, refugees, and those granted asylum.

The department charged that SpaceX also refused to “fairly” consider applications from this group of people or to hire them. The positions in question included both ones requiring advanced degrees and others such as welders, cooks and crane operators at the company.

The U.S. is seeking “fair consideration and back pay” for people who were deterred from or denied employment at SpaceX due to the company’s alleged discrimination, in addition to undetermined civil penalties.

SpaceX, which is based in Hawthorne, California, did not reply to a request for comment.

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Ugly race bias in the workplace at Tesla

Tom D’Agostino | Contributed

The state of California, through its Department of Fair Employment and Housing, has filed a bombshell race bias lawsuit.

The new suit accuses Tesla of subjecting employees at its Fremont plant to discrimination and ugly harassment based on race.

Tesla is “a company that profits from an army of production workers, many of whom are people of color, working under egregious conditions,” the suit says.

Suit Alleges Segregation

According to the suit, Tesla segregates “Black and/or African American” workers and places them at the lowest levels.

It alleges that while those workers make up about 20% of “factory operatives” – such as engine and machine assemblers – there are no Black executives.

And only 3% of the professional positions at the plant consist of Black workers, it adds.

Apart from the allegations of severe underrepresentation in key roles, the complaint levies a barrage of stark allegations of racist behavior.

The company assigns Black workers to more physically demanding job posts, it asserts.

Tesla denies them advancement opportunities and disciplines them more severely than non-Black workers, it adds.

Supervisors and managers “constantly” use the N-word and other racial slurs to refer to Black employees, the suit alleges. And it says that restroom walls and stalls, lunch tables and factory machinery have been defaced with swastikas, “KKK” and other racist graffiti.

Going on for Years, Suit Says

Others constantly baited Black workers into verbal and physical confrontations, the department says.

For nearly 10 years, the suit asserts, Black workers have presented complaints about the treatment but to no avail.

The company violated California law because it did not take sufficient remedial measures in response to complaints of discrimination and harassment, the suit alleges.

It also says higher-ups discouraged Black workers from complaining. And Tesla paid them less than non-Black employees, it says.

Mediation Didn’t Work

Before the suit was filed, the department required Tesla to participate in a dispute resolution proceeding. They were unable to resolve the case using that route.

The suit alleges racial discrimination, retaliation and constructive discharge. For good measure, it accuses Tesla of committing recordkeeping violations.

The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and other relief.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook is paying a $4.75 million fine and up to $9.5 million to eligible victims to resolve the Justice Department’s allegations that it discriminated against U.S. workers in favor of foreigners with special visas to fill high-paying jobs.

Facebook also agreed in the settlement announced Tuesday to train its employees in anti-discrimination rules and to conduct more widespread advertising and recruitment for job opportunities in its permanent labor certification program, which allows an employer to hire a foreign worker to work permanently.

The department’s civil rights division said the social network giant “routinely refused” to recruit, consider or hire U.S. workers, a group that includes U.S. citizens and nationals, people granted asylum, refugees and lawful permanent residents, for positions it had reserved for temporary visa holders.

Facebook sponsored the visa holders for “green cards” authorizing them to work permanently. The so-called H-1B visas are a staple of Silicon Valley, widely used by software programmers and other employees of major U.S. technology companies.

Critics of the practice contend that the foreign nationals will work for lower wages than U.S. citizens. The tech companies maintain that’s not the case, that they turn to foreign nationals because they have trouble finding qualified programmers and other engineers who are U.S. citizens.

“In principle, Facebook is doing a good thing by applying for green cards for its workers, but it has also learned how to game the system to avoid hiring U.S. tech workers,” said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “Facebook started lobbying to change the system more to its liking starting back in 2013 when the comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate was being negotiated.”

The settlement terms announced Tuesday are the largest civil penalty and back-pay award ever recovered by the civil rights division in the 35-year history of enforcing anti-discrimination rules under the Immigration and Nationality Act, officials said. The back pay would be awarded to people deemed to have been unfairly denied employment.

The government said Facebook intentionally created a hiring system in which it denied qualified U.S. workers a fair opportunity to learn about and apply for jobs that it instead sought to channel to temporary visa holders.

“Facebook is not above the law and must comply with our nation’s federal civil rights laws, which prohibit discriminatory recruitment and hiring practices,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke told reporters in a telephone conference. “Companies cannot set aside certain positions for temporary visa holders because of their citizenship or immigration status.”

Facebook also agreed in a separate settlement with the Labor Department to expand its recruitment for U.S. workers and to be subject to ongoing audits to ensure compliance.

The company based in Menlo Park, California, said it believes it met the government’s standards in its practices. It said it agreed to the settlements to end the litigation and move ahead with its permanent labor certification program — which it called an important part of its “overall immigration program.”

“These resolutions will enable us to continue our focus on hiring the best builders from both the U.S. and around the world, and supporting our internal community of highly skilled visa holders who are seeking permanent residence,” Facebook said in a statement.

Facebook says it ended the April-June quarter this year with over 63,400 full-time employees globally and has 3,000 current job openings.

The lawsuit was filed against Facebook last December by the Justice Department under the Trump administration. The alleged violations are said to have occurred from at least Jan. 1, 2018 to at least Sept. 18, 2019.

A $4.75 million fine and $9.5 million in back pay are a trifle for a company valued at $1 trillion with revenue of nearly $86 billion last year. But the announcement comes at a time of intense public discomfort and scrutiny for Facebook.

Public allegations and testimony to Congress from a former Facebook data scientist that the company disregarded internal research showing harm to children have raised a public outcry and calls for stricter government oversight of the company. The former employee, Frances Haugen, accused Facebook of prioritizing profit over safety and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation.

The company is also awaiting a federal judge’s ruling in an epic antitrust suit filed against it by the Federal Trade Commission. Calls from critics and lawmakers of both parties to break up the behemoth company are intensifying.

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