Elham Asaad Buaras
A US federal civil rights agency has found “reasonable cause to believe” that technology giant Cisco subjected Muslim and Middle Eastern employees to a hostile work environment after they spoke out about its business ties to Israel.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued the determination on June 9, following complaints filed by Cisco employees in December 2024. It became public on August 31 when Legal Aid at Work, which represents the employees, announced the finding.
Cisco is a US technology company providing networking, communications, cybersecurity and other technology products.
The determination concerns allegations that employees were subjected to anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and racist abuse on Cisco’s internal communication platforms after speaking out in support of Palestinian rights.
Margaret Ly, local director of the EEOC’s San Jose office, wrote that the agency had found “reasonable cause to believe that [Cisco] subjected a class of individuals to a hostile work environment based on their national origin (Middle Eastern), religion (Muslim), and/or their association with Muslim and/or Middle Eastern individuals”.
The agency said the alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on religion and national origin, including harassment that creates a hostile work environment.
The complaints followed a campaign by Cisco employees who raised concerns about the company’s business ties to Israel after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza.
The employees were organised through Bridge to Humanity (B2H), a group made up primarily of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Cisco workers. B2H circulated an open letter calling on Cisco to disclose its business dealings with the Israeli military, comply with its human-rights policy and protect employees involved in the campaign. More than 1,700 employees signed the letter.
According to the EEOC complaints, employees were subjected to racist and Islamophobic comments on Cisco-moderated platforms, including posts that allegedly celebrated Palestinian civilian deaths, compared Palestinians to animals and targeted workers who supported Palestinian rights.
One commenter responding to a report about two members of a Palestinian family killed in Jerusalem wrote: “I for one am extremely grateful.”
Another told employees who signed the letter to “just up and quit” and suggested they should “quit living and make this world a better place for all”.
Employees also raised concerns after a list of signatories was reportedly exported, warning Cisco it could be used to identify or dox them, including those with family in Palestine or who might travel there. They alleged the company failed to adequately address their concerns.
The complaints also allege that Cisco treated the pro-Palestinian letter as a “form of harassment” and removed it from an internal website where employees could sign it.
Legal Aid at Work filed the EEOC complaints on December 12, 2024, alleging Cisco failed to stop the harassment. It also filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board and the California labour commissioner over alleged interference with protected workplace activity.
Cisco rejected the determination, telling the Guardian it “disagree[d]” with the finding and had “thoroughly investigated all concerns and took appropriate action”.
Christopher Ho, director of the National Origin and Immigrants’ Rights Program at Legal Aid at Work, said Cisco had “at best failed to take their harassment seriously and, through its inaction, sent the implicit message that its pro-Palestinian employees were unworthy of protection”.
“This is a massive multinational corporation with all the resources in the world and they couldn’t get it right,” Ho said. “Thankfully the EEOC did.”
Legal Aid at Work described the finding as the first instance in which the federal government has found that a major technology company failed to prevent discrimination against employees involved in collective pro-Palestinian advocacy.
The determination is not a court judgment against Cisco. The EEOC can decide whether to pursue further legal action, while the employees are considering their own legal options.
The workers’ complaints to the National Labor Relations Board and California labour commissioner remain under review.
The case comes amid scrutiny of technology companies’ business relationships with Israel. The American Friends Service Committee, which tracks corporate connections to Israel’s actions in Gaza, says Cisco provides hardware and communications capacity to the Israeli military’s central datacentre.
The Cisco employees had challenged those links while calling on the company to uphold its stated human-rights commitments.
