"I’d seen this growing up, I knew exactly what it meant."
An Indian student received over $200,000 from a US university after complaints about his packed lunch led to a civil rights lawsuit and ended his academic career.
Aditya Prakash was studying for a PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder when a dispute over reheating Indian food escalated into allegations of discrimination and retaliation.
The university settled the case while denying liability, awarding Aditya and his partner Master’s degrees and barring them from future enrolment or employment.
The dispute began on September 5, 2023, nearly a year into Aditya’s doctorate.
He was reheating palak paneer in the department microwave when a staff member entered the kitchen, said it smelled “pungent” and told him there was a rule against microwaving items with a “strong odour”.
Aditya responded that it was simply food and returned to his desk to eat, “feeling othered and saddened”.
What he perceived as a racialised remark soon became an institutional conflict. Within months, he and his partner, Urmi Bhattacheryya, lost their PhD supervisors and funding.
Urmi had joined the same department days earlier as a doctoral student and teaching assistant.
In September 2025, the couple filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination and retaliation. The university settled four months later for $200,000 while denying liability.
The settlement included awarding Master’s degrees to both students and barring them from future study or employment at the institution.
This month, the couple left the US, with their experience now drawing attention among Indian communities online.
Aditya said the remark echoed previous experiences of exclusion:
“I’d seen this growing up, I knew exactly what it meant.”
He said he spent part of his childhood in Europe, where the “smell” of Indian food was often a source of ridicule.
“It wasn’t about that one lunch. It was about whether I had to change what I eat and where I eat it.”
Aditya later approached the staff member to explain why the comment had hurt him. He said Indian food had been singled out in a shared space previously open to all.
Another administrator was called into the room. She said she wanted to keep the office “smelling nice” and disposed of a bin bag containing only his empty food container.
When Aditya asked which foods were acceptable, she replied that “sandwiches” were fine but “curry” was not.
He responded that curry, as commonly understood in the US, described his entire cuisine. He also questioned why her beef chilli the previous year was not treated similarly.
According to the lawsuit, the administrator did not immediately respond.
Two days later, Aditya returned to the kitchen with four anthropology students, including Urmi, in what they described as an “act of solidarity”.
Another staff member allegedly began “heckling” them and shut the kitchen door, which Aditya interpreted as a gesture of disgust.
The lawsuit stated there was no formal policy at the time restricting use of the main office kitchen.
Subsequent communications accused Urmi and others of “inciting a riot” and referred the matter to the Office of Student Conduct. No formal findings were made.
Urmi later invited Aditya to speak during her class on ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
Aditya spoke in general terms about lived experience and anthropology. He did not name any staff members.
Days later, Urmi discovered she had been removed from her teaching role.
She said: “I went to my laptop to access the class roster and suddenly I was locked out. There was no warning. No conversation.”
This followed an email reinstating restrictions on the kitchen and discouraging food with “strong or lingering smells”.
The couple responded by copying the entire department, saying the policy amounted to discrimination. Urmi said she would stop teaching until concerns were addressed.
From that point, they said the issue was reframed as one of behaviour and professionalism, rather than racialised treatment.
Aditya was later told that staff members felt threatened by him.
He said: “The faculty told me that the staff had called me a physical threat.
“I was told I had to be chaperoned by one of my advisors if I existed in that general area. It was unacceptable.”
A university official later acknowledged the “pain, discrimination and racism” experienced by the couple.
In January 2024, both PhD advisory committees resigned without warning. The department reassigned them to advisers outside their research fields.
The couple were also made ineligible for teaching roles and funding, putting their immigration status at risk.
They said these decisions dismantled the academic and financial structures needed to continue their doctorates.
A university spokesperson, Deborah Méndez-Wilson, said it was committed to an “inclusive environment for all students, faculty and staff regardless of national origin, religion, culture”.
She added: “When these allegations arose in 2023, we took them seriously and adhered to established, robust processes to address them, as we do with all claims of discrimination and harassment.
“We reached an agreement with the students in September and deny any liability in this case.”
The settlement may have closed the legal case but the consequences remain.
Several years of academic work were left unfinished, while professional plans were put on hold.
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