Caste, Race And Class In The Silicon Valley - An Analysis Of Hierarchies In The Us It Sector

Author: LawSphereX

Category: General Law

Published: 2026-08-23T18:44:28.872Z

Updated: 2026-08-30T07:09:37.425Z

CASTE, RACE AND CLASS IN THE SILICON VALLEY: AN

ANALYSIS

OF HIERARCHIES IN THE US IT SECTOR

Aaditya Raghuvanshi, Jindal Global Law School

ABSTRACT

In the US sector, the dream of Silicon Valley has always been considered the means and way to rise above the ranks in the social realm and economic realms. But recently, it has been evident that caste hierarchies are perpetually rooted outside India, too. One of the key sectors in which it is the most prevalent is the US IT sector. This intersects with class-based and racial prejudice. This prejudice raises concerning issues of discrepancies in wages and biased hiring practices. While the companies focus on getting rid of class and race-based discrimination in the workplace, the issue of caste discrimination remains unaddressed and untreated.

INTRODUCTION

This paper takes a dive into the ugly layer of the ostensible ‘utopian’ and ‘merit-based’ US IT industry, which exposes the deep-rooted caste discrimination brought in by the migratory labour from South Asia. The migration of South Asian workers has led to upward mobility economy-wise, it has also led to the problematic issues of caste-based discrimination, already prevalent and a part of daily lives in India, to become a deeply entrenched concept in the migratory labour-dominated US IT sector. This paper also encompasses how the above-stated disparities lead to heightened economic costs and deplorable innovation rates and how the exclusion of caste from diversity-empowering policies creates a worldwide pattern of polarity against the lower castes. Firstly, the question that would help us reach our conclusion is how the concept of caste moved from India to the US.

Historical Context of Caste and Its Migration to the U. S. The caste system is a deeply ingrained hierarchy that has structured South Asian societies for over 3,000 years (Ambedkar 1946). The concept of caste-based discrimination was banned by the Constitution in 1950, but caste disparity and discrimination remained rampant phenomena. (Deshpande 2011). According to the NY Times, From the mid-1990s, American companies, panicking at the feared “millennial meltdown” of computer systems, were hiring nearly 100,000 technology workers a year from India. This led to a surplus of South Asians and Indians moving in, and their prejudices and beliefs slowly engrained themselves in the social culture and crept their way into the working culture as well. (Times 2020). According to Wilkerson, caste systems maintain social stratification through occupations.

The Laws of Manu allotted jobs as per varna, with Brahmins at the top as priests and scholars and Shudras at the bottom as labourers. (Wilkerson 2020). Dalits were excluded altogether and relegated to "polluting" jobs, such as manual scavenging. The rigidity of this occupation persists: Dominant caste Indians are mainly in high-paying tech jobs in Silicon Valley, while Dalits face barriers to getting into the same jobs due to systemised and planned exclusion from elite educational institutions. The dominant Indian colleges send workers primarily to the big tech companies in the US, and IITs have less than 5% Dalit enrolments even after reservation policies (Department of Sociology 2020). This pipeline feeds Silicon Valley with labourers who are disproportionately 30% upper caste.

(Zwick-Maitreyi 2018) Caste Hierarchies in Silicon Valley: Mechanisms and Impacts A survey conducted by Equity Labs, conducted in 2020 found that 25% of the Dalits working in any job in the US faced discrimination in work environments, and 60% of them were very apprehensive about revealing the caste they identify by. (Labs 2020) These concerns and fears go unnoticed and unaccounted for because when the big companies launch diversity drives, the main focus is race and gender to cater to the dominant diaspora, while caste, the issues related to the migratory workers who face caste discrimination, go under the radar because it does not cater to the native population. As discussed before, representation of caste is severely lacking in the US anti-discrimination law.

The Cisco case prompted the inclusion of ancestry protections, but people contend that it still doesn't recognise caste as the deeply layered socioeconomic concept it is. Occupational hierarchy works like a mechanism globally. In the IT sector, the upper-caste managers replicate the caste issue by opting to go for the higher-class candidate rather than going for the candidate most suitable for the position, while the Dalits are relegated to low-skill and low-paying jobs. This mirrors the caste system followed in India. Dalit engineers in the U. S. earn 20-30% less than dominant-caste peers in similar roles (Raj 2024). Wilkerson observes that discrepancy in wages is a trademark of oppressive caste systems. intersectionality: Caste, Race, and Class This disparity in wages is not limited to caste and also constitutes race. Black and Latino workers earn $0. 80–$0.

85 per dollar earned by white/Asian peers (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024). It was noted that teams that had homogenous higher races were reported to be 45% less innovative (Review 2017). Wilkerson, in her seminal work, The Eight Pillars of Caste, noted that productivity decreases due to rigid hierarchies because it stifles collaboration and diversity. MYTHS OF CLASS MOBILITY While jobs in the tech industry show promise of upward movement in society, Dalits and other oppressed classes face debt traps from India’s massively privatised education systems. They enter the US through H-1B (business) visas, which are directly attached to the employer, confining them in a situation in which they can’t report instances of discrimination against themselves (bloomberglaw n. d. ). Wilkerson emphasises that caste is inescapable and cannot be muted even by wealth.

Reuters spoke to about two dozen Dalit tech workers in the United States who said discrimination had followed them overseas. They said that caste cues, including their last names, hometowns, diets or religious practices, had led to colleagues bypassing them in hiring, promotions and social activities. Tech firms like Apple added caste to anti-discrimination policies in 2020; however, most conflate caste with nationality or race (Rueters 2022). There is intersectional capitalism as Caste, race, and class function as overlapping tools of labour exploitation, maximising profit through hierarchical division (University 2019) this analysis aligns with Wilkerson, who also points out that occupational hierarchies cater to the economic interests of the majority while harming the marginalised groups even further.

The IT sector’s dependency on migratory labourers redevelops the colonial era beliefs where the idea of merit is decided with closeness to whites and upper caste Brahmanism. This replicates India’s colonial era patterns in a dangerous way, where proximity to the upper class decides the value you hold in a society, as it restricts the already small wiggle area for Dalits to get out of the chain of oppression and rise within the society. REFORMS Certain legal reforms like expanding the already established anti-caste discrimination laws. Another way can be to hold the corporate bodies under managers accountable through a mechanism of diversity quotas and other inclusivity criterions.

CONCLUSION

To conclude the paper, it is established that the continuity of caste hierarchies in the US IT sector interconnects with racial and caste-based inequalities and how these oppressions have been carried on from historical times to the modern-day global IT hubs. As this paper emphasises, caste is not just a ghastly remnant of past oppressions; rather, it is a concept that has warped itself around modern society in ever-changing forms. Taking heed of Isabel Wilkerson’s writing, the caste hierarchies in the jobs replicate the rigid stratum as described in early Indian history.

The laws of Manusmriti, which, in the past, have been dictating the issuing of the types of jobs as per caste, are being replicated in the US IT industry with the upper caste high level giving better job opportunities to high caste members and relegating Dalits to jobs with less importance and standing, where they face difficulties in progressing, getting equal pay etc. these hierarchies are further reinforced by America’s own race based hierarchical system which relegates blacks and Latinos to the lower strata of labour market by targeting them through the criminal justice system, as per Ana DuVernay’s 13th (Alexander 2010) (Wacquant 2001). Wilkerson establishes a system that shows how caste systems heavily rely on occupational hierarchies to maintain ideal social conditions.

In Silicon Valley, the biased hiring methods and gatekeeping of elite institutions from economically challenged minorities keep this order safe. This creates a constant, continual loop where the marginalised minorities are at the bottom of any form of labour practices. This suppression causes dents in the economic costs through repressed innovation, wage disparity, etc. This not only points out moral-based issues in the industry but also exposes the structural ineptitude of the industry, which hinders the possibilities that such an integral industry holds. Also, the mass incarceration cycle displayed in the movie 13th Against Blacks and browns formulates a system of poverty, inequality and dependence. (Bonilla-Silva 2015) (Pager 2008) Furthermore, Wilkerson’s research on heritability as a pillar of cast emphasises why movement in societal class cannot destroy this system of hierarchies.

Even when Dalits, blacks, Hispanics, etc. , get into elite institutions and well-paying jobs, they face a lot of discrimination related to the blot of their origins. This is evident in situations where Dalit engineers are put in positions of less importance, which goes against the standard of meritocracy that the tech giants are supposed to follow. This is also reflected in the way how blacks face restrictions on their ability to rise above in actual positions of power. As shown by Wilkerson, caste is not limited to a social concept but rather also reflects in a person’s own self-worth and how he/she/they/them perceive themselves. The interconnectedness of the concepts of caste, race and class in the IT industry in the US highlights how global capitalism uses these historical hierarchies to create a diversion between labour and maximise their profits.

It bears similarity to how slavery was justified through the bible. The caste hierarchies in Silicon Valley replicate the ones practised in south asian societies. This empowers Wilkerson’s argument that caste is not a geological concept but rather an ever-changing adaptive concept that remains true to its core values of suppression of lower caste and upliftment of the upper castes. (Wilkerson 2020) (Alexander 2010) Addressing these issues requires more than surface-level concepts and policy changes. Legal reforms that are brought into the ambit of diversity and discrimination should explicitly recognise the concept of caste as a problem and category of discrimination under the law. Companies should take diversity measures behind the concepts of race and gender and focus more on international traditional hierarchies because of the surplus of migratory labour.

Elite education systems that run the labour pipelines of Silicon Valley should be more open and inclusive for the marginalised sections of society. Furthermore, in order to eliminate the structures that support racial inequity and mass imprisonment, criminal justice reform is necessary. (Wacquant 2001) (V. 2019) To conclude, the embedded nature of caste-based hierarchies in the US IT industry reflects broader themes of international inequalities ingrained in historical systems of suppression and oppression. By connecting Wilkerson’s eight pillars of caste with the occupational hierarchies in the IT sector and acknowledging the role of mass arrests in bringing racial disparities as per the movie 13th, this paper has shown that these structures warp around new societies and timelines by morphing into various formations, all the while staying true to its essence of oppression.

Breaking these structures requires a fundamental change in how we perceive the idea of meritocracy and breaking the idea of caste and race disparities that we have in our mind and mould it according to the realities of how it affects and embeds into society. (palak 2025)

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