Apple News: The lawsuit, filed in California state court, is the first to claim gender racism in Silicon Valley, focusing on certain tech employees’ ethnic biases.
Apple News: Apple was defeated in the first round of a sexism case filed in the United States by a female engineer from India who said that her two superiors — one from her country and the other from Pakistan — viewed her as a subordinate in their own countries.
The woman’s lawsuit in state court in California is the first to claim workplace sexism in Silicon Valley, which centers on ethnic biases towards some South Asian tech employees.
Cisco Systems Inc. is facing a lawsuit filed by the California Civil Rights Commission claiming bigotry against a Dalit, a member of India’s so-called lower castes.
Anita Nariani Schulze is a member of the Sindhi minority, having Hindu ancestors from the Sindh region of Pakistan. Her lawsuit claims that after strong performance reviews and substantial staff contributions, her senior and direct bosses, all-male, routinely omitted her from meetings while welcoming her male colleagues, criticized her, micromanaged her jobs, and denied her incentives.
Schulze argues that the managers’ animosity stems from misogyny, bigotry, racial prejudice, and national origin discrimination. She claims the managers’ unequal treatment was compounded by the fact that the Sindhi Hindu nationality is “known for its technical acumen” and gender equality.
Judge Sunil R. Kulkarni of Santa Clara County Superior Court dismissed Apple’s appeal to dismiss the case in a preliminary decision on Wednesday. Kulkarni said Schulze had sufficiently backed her legal arguments, while not agreeing on the merits of the issue. Apple claimed that her arguments were too general and founded on assumptions.
However, the judge turned down Schulze’s offer to represent a group of female Apple workers who had been exposed to sexual harassment over the past four years. He concluded with Apple that she had not shown a discriminatory trend that could be generalized to a larger population.
The court’s docket does not say whether the judge would hold a hearing on Thursday before making a final verdict.
A call for comment from Apple was not immediately returned.
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing said in the Cisco case that two Indian workers at the San Jose-based corporation discriminated against a Dalit coworker based on caste.
Cisco has denied the accusations, saying that it has a “zero tolerance for discrimination” strategy. The case could also be dismissed because caste is not a covered group under US civil rights law, according to the statement.
