Cisco Caste Lawsuit: Rulings, Court Path, and Civil Rights Stakes

The Cisco caste lawsuit is a civil rights case filed in June 2020 by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, now the Civil Rights Department (CRD), alleging that a Dalit engineer at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters was paid less, denied opportunities, and retaliated against because of his caste. It was the first U.S. employment lawsuit to directly confront caste-based discrimination in the workplace. Five years in, the case is still pending in Santa Clara County Superior Court against Cisco Systems as the sole remaining defendant, with no trial date set.¹

What the Engineer Alleged

The complainant, identified in early filings as “John Doe” and later revealed in December 2023 filings as Chetan Narsude, had worked at Cisco as a Principal Engineer since roughly October 2015. The CRD’s complaint named two of his supervisors as individual defendants: Sundar Iyer, a Distinguished Engineer, and Ramana Kompella, a Principal Engineer. Iyer and Narsude had attended the Indian Institute of Technology around the same time.²

According to the complaint, Iyer disclosed Narsude’s Dalit background to colleagues in October 2016, identifying him as someone admitted to IIT through India’s affirmative action program for Scheduled Castes. Narsude was then expected to accept a lower position within an informal caste hierarchy on his team, the complaint alleged, and as a result received less pay, fewer professional opportunities, and inferior working conditions than higher-caste colleagues.³

After Narsude confronted Iyer and filed internal complaints with Cisco’s HR department in November 2016, the complaint said he faced immediate retaliation: he was removed as lead on two technologies, bypassed for promotions, isolated from his team, and given what the complaint described as impossible assignments under Kompella’s supervision. HR staff, the CRD alleged, told Narsude that caste discrimination “was not unlawful” and closed his complaints without action.³

The CRD framed its claims under existing California anti-discrimination categories: religion, ancestry, national origin, and race.⁴

How Cisco Responded

Cisco disputed the allegations. The company said it had conducted a “thorough second-level review” of Narsude’s complaints and found “no evidence” of caste-based discrimination or retaliation, and noted that Narsude had accepted a lateral move to another engineering team with no reduction in pay. While saying caste discrimination is unacceptable under its internal policies, Cisco argued it should not face legal claims “for a form of alleged discrimination that is not legally recognized.”⁵

Cisco also criticized the CRD for keeping the complainant’s identity confidential while publicly naming Iyer and Kompella, which the company said led to online harassment of both supervisors.⁵

Federal Court to State Court

The CRD originally filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On October 16, 2020, the department voluntarily dismissed the federal suit without prejudice and refiled in Santa Clara County Superior Court. The switch let the CRD proceed under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, using established categories like ancestry and national origin instead of testing an untried caste theory under federal law.⁶

Key Rulings So Far

Arbitration Denied

Cisco moved early to send the case to private arbitration, arguing Narsude had signed a mandatory arbitration agreement when hired. In February 2021, Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Drew Takaichi denied that motion, ruling that the CRD was suing as an independent party in the public interest and had never agreed to arbitrate.⁷ On August 5, 2022, the California Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the CRD “cannot be compelled to arbitrate under an agreement it has not entered.”⁸

Individual Defendants Dropped

In January 2023, Iyer and Kompella filed a motion for sanctions accusing the CRD of fabricating evidence, tampering with dates, and withholding information. The motion said the CRD had hidden evidence that leadership positions on the relevant project had been offered to candidates who self-identified as Dalit before Narsude filed complaints, that Kompella had been interviewed for only 15 minutes before the lawsuit was filed, and that the CRD had assigned Iyer a religious and caste identity of “Hindu Brahmin” despite his statements that he was irreligious.⁹

In April 2023, the CRD voluntarily dismissed its claims against both engineers. A December 2022 case management filing indicates the dismissal was conditioned on the engineers withdrawing their sanctions motion. The litigation against Cisco itself continued.¹⁰¹¹

Hindu American Foundation’s Challenges Rejected

In September 2022, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) filed a federal lawsuit against the CRD in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, arguing the agency had unconstitutionally defined Hinduism as a religion that mandates caste hierarchy in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. HAF said it opposed caste discrimination but contended existing ancestry and national origin protections already covered it.¹²¹³

U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd dismissed the suit on August 31, 2023, finding HAF lacked standing and calling its theory “highly speculative and seemingly implausible,” but allowed amendment.¹⁴¹⁵¹

HAF also tried to intervene directly in the state court case. In November 2023, Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Amber Rosen denied that motion.¹⁶

Where the Case Stands Now

Cisco is the sole remaining defendant. Judge Amber Rosen is managing the case in Santa Clara County Superior Court. As of late 2024, the parties were locked in discovery disputes: the CRD sought broad search terms such as “Dalit,” “stigma,” and “rank,” along with disciplinary records and discrimination complaints beyond those tied to Narsude, while Cisco argued those requests were overbroad and pushed to limit discovery to caste-related allegations involving the two original supervisors. Discovery had been paused for mediation, which did not resolve the case. No trial date has been set.¹⁷¹

Is Caste Covered by Existing Civil Rights Law?

The underlying legal question the case will test is whether caste discrimination is already actionable under American civil rights law or whether it requires new legislation. No U.S. court has definitively answered it. Some scholars have argued that caste bias can be reached through existing Title VII categories of national origin (which the Supreme Court has equated with ancestry), race, or religion, drawing on the reasoning of the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County: discrimination based on a trait inextricably tied to a protected characteristic is itself actionable.¹⁸ Cisco’s position, argued in court filings, is that caste is not a protected class under existing law. That disagreement is the central issue the case will settle for California.

Ripple Effects Beyond the Courtroom

After the lawsuit was filed, the advocacy group Equality Labs said 260 IT workers came forward with their own caste discrimination complaints.¹⁹

Apple updated its employee conduct policy in 2020 to explicitly prohibit caste-based discrimination, becoming the first major tech company to do so. Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon said caste bias was covered under their existing protections for ancestry and national origin, though none added caste as a standalone category. More than 1,600 Google employees signed a petition asking the company to formally add caste to its code of conduct. Cisco itself eventually added caste to its own list of protected categories.²⁰²¹

Seattle in 2023 became the first U.S. city to add caste as a protected category to its anti-discrimination ordinances. A constitutional challenge to that ordinance was dismissed for lack of standing in March 2024, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed in January 2025.²²²³¹⁹

With SB 403 vetoed and Seattle’s ordinance surviving initial challenge, the Cisco case remains the highest-profile venue in which an American court will decide whether existing civil rights categories reach caste. Its outcome will shape how courts, employers, and legislatures across the country handle the question going forward.

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