U. Senate endorses Caste Task Force recommendations amid complaint
The University Senate recently backed the University's Caste Task Force's August report about caste discrimination after a complaint was filed against the University and a Task Force co-chair.
The report recommended the University create additional resources related to the prevention and identification of caste discrimination on campus. Co-chaired by University Senator Audrey Truschke, a professor in the Department of History at Rutgers—Newark, and Corinne Castro, the University's senior director for Faculty Diversity and Institutional Transformation, the Task Force was formed after caste arose as a topic of concern during the 2023 faculty strike.
New Jersey currently has no formal legislation prohibiting caste discrimination, which holds implications for the University's operations, given that it is a public institution. Potential caste-related incidents are also not measured in the state's bias and discrimination data, according to the Task Force's report.
Similar movements to identify, research and prevent caste discrimination have sprung up across the country, most recently inducing changes in state law in California and in university policy at Brandeis University, Colby College, California State University and Brown University, the New Jersey State Bar Foundation reported.
In the complaint, Richa Gautam, the founder of a group called CasteFiles, which defines itself on social media platform X as an "advocacy thinktank and educational platform challenging false caste (and) race narratives in policy (and) media," said that caste discrimination has little backing in the U.S.
The report details alleged incidents of caste discrimination that seem to affect the University community's social engagements, housing arrangements and experiences with demonstrating on campus. Gautam said the report cites "flimsy anecdotal hearsay."
Truschke, who specializes in South Asian history, has faced controversy in the past for her social media posts about Hindu nationalism and in-class content pertaining to historical events in India, as previously reported by The Daily Targum. Placing her in the role of Task Force co-chair was "apathy" on the University's part, the complaint read.
When asked for a response to the complaint, Truschke claimed CasteFiles is a "far-right Hindu nationalist organization," and she disagreed with the sole attribution of the entire report to her, further explaining that she was on a "laundry list" of email recipients.
"Most of the angry email had nothing to do with the recent University Task Force on Caste Discrimination that I co-chaired," Truschke said. "Rather, the focus was on my social media comments from years ago, my publications and my syllabi."
The Senate, as well as the Task Force, advocate for the University to pour research efforts into examining whether and to what extent caste discrimination affects University community members.
