A dispute that started over heating a dish in a microwave ended with two Indian students winning a $200,000 settlement from an American university.
Aditya Prakash and his fiancee, Urmi Bhattacheryya, told the BBC they filed a civil rights lawsuit against the University of Colorado, Boulder, after facing a series of “microaggressions and retaliatory actions” following the microwave incident.
The harassment began, the suit alleged, after a university staff member objected to Prakash heating his meal of palak paneer – one of the most popular North Indian dishes, made from spinach and pureed paneer (considered the Indian equivalent of cottage cheese) – in a microwave on campus, because of the way it smelled.
In response to questions from the BBC, the university said it could not comment on the “specific circumstances” surrounding the students’ claims of discrimination and harassment due to privacy laws, but added that it is “committed to fostering an inclusive environment for all students, faculty and staff regardless of national origin, religion, culture and other classes protected under US law and university policies”.
“When these allegations arose in 2023, we took them seriously and adhered to established and robust processes to address them, as we do with all claims of discrimination and harassment. We reached an agreement with the students in September. [2025] and denies any responsibility in this case,” said the university.
Prakash said for them, the point of the case was not the money. “It was about making a point – that there are consequences for discriminating against Indians for their ‘Indianness’.”
The case has received significant media coverage in India since it was first reported last week, starting a conversation about what many have described as “food racism” in Western countries. Many Indians on social media have shared their own experiences of facing ridicule over their eating habits abroad.
Some have also pointed out that food discrimination is rampant in India as well, where non-vegetarian food is banned in many schools and colleges due to perceptions that it is impure or dirty. People from underprivileged castes and northeastern states often face prejudice over their eating habits, with some complaining about the smell of the ingredients they use.
And not just Indian or South Asian food – communities from Africa, Latin America and other parts of Asia also shared their experiences of shame about their eating habits.
Prakash and Bhattacheryya claim their ordeal began in September 2023. Prakash, a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at the university, was stirring his meal of palak paneer when a British staff member allegedly remarked that his food was emitting a “smelly” smell and told him there was a rule against heating food with strong smells in that microwave.
Prakash said that the rule was not mentioned anywhere and when he later asked about what food was considered pungent, he was told that sandwiches were not, while curry was.
Palak paneer is prepared using spinach puree and paneer cheese cubes [Getty Images]
Prakash alleged that the exchange was followed by a series of actions by the university which led to him and Bhattacheryya – who was also a PhD student there – losing their research funding, teaching roles and even the PhD advisers they had worked with for months.
In May 2025, Prakash and Bhattacheryya filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging discriminatory treatment and a “pattern of escalating retaliation” against them.
In September, the university settled the lawsuit. Such solutions are usually arrived at to avoid long and expensive court battles for both parties.
Under the terms of the agreement, the university agreed to award the students their degrees but denied any liability and barred them from studying or working there in the future.
In its statement shared with the BBC, the university added: “CU Boulder’s Department of Anthropology has worked to rebuild trust among students, faculty and staff. Among other efforts, department leaders have met with graduate students, faculty and staff to listen and discuss changes that will best support the department’s efforts to foster an inclusive and supportive environment for all.”
“Individuals determined to be responsible for violating the university’s policies preventing discrimination and harassment will be held accountable,” she added.
Prakash says this is not his first brush with food discrimination.
When he was growing up in Italy, his school teachers would often ask him to sit at a separate table during lunch breaks because his classmates found the smell of his food to be “triggering”, he says.
People from North East India often face prejudice over their eating habits, with some complaining about the smell of the ingredients they use [Getty Images]
“Doing things like isolating me from my European classmates or stopping me from using a shared microwave because the smells of my food is how white people control your Indianness and shrink the spaces you can exist in,” he says.
He adds that there is a long history of food being used to tear down Indian and other ethnic groups.
“The word ‘curry’ has been combined with the ‘smell’ of marginalized communities working in people’s kitchens and homes and has turned into a pejorative term for ‘Indian’,” he says.
Bhattacheryya says that even someone like former Vice President Kamala Harris is not immune to being insulted over food.
She points to a social media post in 2024 by far-right activist Laura Loomer saying that if Harris becomes president, the White House “smells like curry”. Loomer denied being a racist.
In the lawsuit, Bhattacheryya also alleged that she faced retaliation after she invited Prakash to speak as a guest lecturer on the topic of cultural relativism in her anthropology class. Cultural relativism is the view that no culture is superior or inferior to another since the cultural practices of all groups exist within their own cultural context.
During the lecture, Prakash says he shared several examples of racism in food that he had encountered, including the palak paneer incident, without naming anyone.
Bhattacheryya says she too faced racist abuse when she posted a thread on X about the “systemic racism” she and Prakash were facing at university in 2024.
Under the post, there are several comments supporting the couple but also those who said, “go back to India”, “decolonization was a mistake” and “not only the food, most of you don’t swim and we know it”.
Prakash and Bhattacheryya said that what they wanted from the university was to be heard and understood; to recognize their hurt and pain when they are “othered” and to make amends in a meaningful way.
They claim they never received a meaningful apology from the university. The university did not respond to the BBC’s inquiry about this.
They have since returned to India and say they may never go back to the United States.
“No matter how good you are at what you do, the system constantly tells you that because of the color of your skin or your nationality, you can be sent back at any time. The precarity is acute and our experience at the university is a good example of this,” says Prakash.
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