caste isn't a protected class so they might be fine legally.

If you listen to the linked podcast you'll learn that it in fact may qualify as a protected class, and that there is currently a pending lawsuit that may rule on this.

> caste isn't a protected class so they might be fine legally

Caste itself isn't explicitly protected (axes of discrimination that weren't widely recognized as actual things people cared about in the US when the law was written don't tend to be) but there are arguments that caste discrimination runs afoul of existing US protection regarding color, ethnicity, national origin, and religion, among others, and some of these are currently being actively litigated in federal court, IIRC by both private plaintiffs and state fair-employment authorities.

So “might be fine”, but very much might not. And HR is usually about avoiding risk of exposure, not steering the company into “might be fine” waters.

Desi caste really is ethnicity which is a protected class- it is thousands of endogamous communities that have been that way for a long time. They might not look as distinct from each other as say Tutsis and Hutus, but I don't think you could formulate a definition of ethnicity that excludes South Asian castes.

> caste isn't a protected class

Perhaps not explicitly, but I could easily see courts ruling that it is. To me, it seems covered by the ethnicity portion, although I get they are not the exact same concept.

Yeah. I wasn't sure there was any legal recourse. Nonetheless, it does seem highly unethical to make a decision in an interview based on caste.

Although, the OP's case, the person did quickly realize her mistake, but bias might still be present.

In then OP's case most likely the person realized that she shouldnt have said it directly/to him as her mistake and needs to hide her discrimination better.

Note that in many states, caste and other ancestry discrimination is unambiguously protected. There have been any number of suits claiming the Civil Rights Act prohibits caste-based discrimination; I don't think there are any high-level rulings about whether it does, but the basic argument doesn't seem implausible.