Equality Labs

Equality Labs is a South Asian Dalit civil rights organization that uses community research, organizing, and advocacy to fight caste discrimination. Its 2018 survey — Caste in the United States — produced the single most influential caste statistic in American public life: 67% of Dalits reported experiencing workplace discrimination. Since publication, that number has been written into California legislation, Seattle's caste anti-discrimination ordinance, Cisco's internal HR investigation, Fortune 500 corporate policies, and dozens of news articles — all treating it as representative of the Dalit American experience. It is not. The CID scored the survey at 3.8, Advocacy-Grade. Respondents were recruited through Equality Labs' own advocacy networks — people who already follow a caste discrimination organization were asked whether they had experienced caste discrimination. In survey methodology, this is called self-selected sampling, and it is one of the most well-known ways to produce inflated results. The 67% figure tells you what Equality Labs' own followers reported, not what Dalit Americans as a whole experience. The report never discloses this limitation. Neither does any of the legislation, corporate policy, or news coverage that cites it. Seven years later, the number circulates as settled fact.