Investigating the Role of ‘Caste’ in Discrimination and Exclusion: Foregrounding Lived Experiences of Indian Students in US Universities

The legal inclusion of caste as a ‘protected category’ under anti-discrimination policies by selected US universities sparks intense discussion about the reality of caste in US universities. This paper explores the experiences of Indian students who encounter caste discrimination and exclusion in US universities. The semi-structural, in-depth interview was conducted with students who are currently enrolled in US universities for their master's and PhD. The participating students come from constitutionally recognized marginalized caste categories, mainly Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. The paper utilized secondary data, such as public documents, including popular media articles and social media, along with primary sources, for enriching discussions. The finding is thematically categorized and critically analyzed using content analysis. The paper broadly makes three arguments. First, all the respondents acknowledge the crucial role of recent legal developments in ensuring lower castes' safety, especially dalits within the US campus. Second, many of them highlight various forms of invisiblisation, discrimination, and exclusion in terms of language, color, non-commonality between peers, and lifestyle choices they face on the university campus. The thematic analysis explains the issue's complexity, where many forms of discrimination require an understanding of 'local histories of caste' to provide a direct link to the issue. In this regard, the role of 'linguistic skills', 'lifestyle', and 'friendship' has been interrogated to find its relation with the socioeconomic history of marginalized caste mobility. Third, it is observed that the differential treatment based on stereotypical imagination predominantly comes from the dominant presence of upper caste in US universities. The pervasive presence of caste prejudices demands going beyond legal remedies to address everyday forms of discrimination in university spaces. The testimonies from marginalized castes underscore the need for institutional machinery and structural support to fight everyday forms of injustice based on caste on US university campuses.