Democracy &
Freedom
Promise vs Practice

Mr. Pieter Friedrich is an investigative journalist covering ethnonationalism, settler colonialism, and transnational repression across South Asia and the Middle East. He investigates how ethnonationalist movements operate across borders — from India’s Hindu nationalist networks to settler-colonial projects in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Palestine. His cover article in India’s Caravan magazine was the first systematic investigation of the global political networks of India’s Hindu nationalist movement, the RSS.

Pieter’s investigations have been used as source material by Harper’s Magazine, The Intercept, and Slate. His work has also been cited or featured in The Washington Post, Jewish Currents, Newsweek, Christianity Today, Deutsche Welle, MSNBC, and an Arte documentary on India’s Hindu nationalist movement.

Pieter has authored four books, including Saffron America: India’s Hindu Nationalist Project at Work in the United States and Captivating the Simple-Hearted, which has been translated into seven languages. He has lectured at Columbia University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and other institutions, and is a regular speaker at briefings on Capitol Hill and forums at the United Nations.

Dr. Balmurli Natrajan is a professor of Anthropology in the Department of Community and Social Justice at William Paterson University of New Jersey. His research and teaching focuses on the formation of groups, specifically caste and race, how inequalities are produced and how identities intersect with inequalities, on culture and legitimization and on state and development policy on sanitation, the formation of worker subjects in domestic work, navigation of livelihoods through indebtedness.

Balmurli has written two books: The culturalization of caste in India which addresses questions of how caste survives the system that gave rise to it and adapts to new demands of capitalism and democracy and his second book Against Stigma: which is a collection of 15 essays on Studies in Caste, Race and Justice.

Ms. Usha Kumar is a researcher and political commentator based in New York City. She can be reached at kumar.usha@proton.me

Mr. Phil Horowitz is a Bay Area lawyer who has represented employees for 30 years. He has litigated hundreds of cases since 1983, including wrongful termination cases, sexual harassment cases, and cases for unpaid wages, overtime, commissions and stock options. He also serves as a mediator, helping employment lawyers and their clients settle their disputes. Mr. Horowitz has also appeared before the appellate courts, including in the landmark California Supreme Court case Reno v. Baird and the leading California Court of Appeal summary judgment case Nazir v. United Airlines.

Kara Brodfuehrer Senior Fair Employment and Housing Counsel, California Civil Rights Department

Mr. Ashok Kumar Pindiga is currently pursuing a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) degree at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University. He holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Master of Arts (MA) in Political Science from Central European University in Vienna, Austria. His primary research focuses on caste discrimination in employment and civil rights laws in the US. He edited a book titled "Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Social Justice: Towards an Egalitarian Social Order."

Ms. Ann M. Noel, Esq. is a retired attorney, the founder of Noel Workplace Consulting, and the former executive officer for the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission. She is the former Co-Director of the U.C. Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law’s Gender Harassment/Violence Working Group and organized a 2022 conference on Caste Discrimination. Ms. Noel co-edited the Berkeley Center’s 2020 book, The Globalization of the #MeToo Movement, which describes the #MeToo movement worldwide, and suggests techniques to combat harassment.

Biography coming soon.

Dr. Murali Shanmugavelan is a scholar, researcher, and anti-caste activist examining how caste, race, gender, and sexual orientation are obscured and reproduced within media, digital cultures, and platform economies. At Fairwork, he studies inequalities affecting minoritised platform workers and develops approaches to address exploitation.

As a Faculty Fellow in Race and Technology at Data & Society, Murali reimagined technology studies through anti-caste perspectives and developed a module on Critical Caste and Technology Studies. His research covers digital ethnography, internet governance, caste-based hate speech, gig economies, machine-learning bias, and manifestations of caste and race online. He also advocates against caste discrimination in the UK.

Dr. William R. Frey is an Assistant Professor of Child Welfare and Technology in the School of Social Work at San José State University. His interdisciplinary research investigates the relationship between humanity and technology, complicating how we think about digital platforms and "artificial intelligence". William's current work examines how people refuse, resist, and sabotage technologies to survive and thrive. He aims to create connective tissue between research (conceptual, theoretical, and empirical) and spaces of practice and everyday life.

William's scholarship is informed by over 16 years of critical dialogic facilitation practice ranging from 1-hour workshops to three year dialogic communities. He also co-organizes the Critical Race and Intersectional Technology (CRIT) Collective with Dr. Kishonna L. Gray, an intergenerational, creative, and intellectual community of care. William’s research can be found in Social Media + Society, Journal of Research on Adolescence, Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work, Social Science Computer Review, Advances in Social Work, Data & Society, and elsewhere.