EEOC Finds Cisco May Have Violated Rights of Muslim, Arab Employees Who Opposed Israel Tech Sales

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has determined that Cisco Systems may have violated the civil rights of Middle Eastern and Muslim employees after a wave of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim messages circulated inside the company, according to a letter of determination obtained by Al Jazeera and first reported by Politico Pro.

The finding, issued in June, traces back to a December 2024 complaint filed with the EEOC by a group of Cisco employees calling themselves Bridge to Humanity. Months earlier, the group had circulated an internal open letter, signed by more than 1,700 of Cisco's roughly 86,000 employees, calling on the San Jose company to stop supplying its technology to the Israeli government.

According to the complaint, Cisco removed the letter from its internal site, marked it "under review," and many of the signatories were subsequently harassed. One employee was told to "quit living," the complaint alleges.

When the company did not respond to their concerns, the employees compiled a 76-page report cataloguing hostile messages posted in an internal group called Connected Jewish Network, and submitted it to Cisco's Employee Relations and Ethics offices. The document, later made public by The Guardian, quotes a November 2023 post from an unnamed employee who wrote that "Israeli passersby killed 2 members of a Palestinian family in Jerusalem this morning, and I for one am extremely grateful."

"These Cisconians have, among other things, repeatedly glorified violence, joked about sending people to their deaths, likened Palestinians and those with opposing viewpoints to animals, labeled Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims as murderous, violent terrorists."

The report also states that the Connected Jewish Network group itself was not a "safe space for all of our Jewish colleagues."

The EEOC's determination goes further than cataloguing a hostile environment. It finds that Cisco retaliated against an unnamed staffer for her involvement in pro-Palestine organizing by terminating her employment.

The original complaint was filed on the employees' behalf by Legal Aid at Work, a nonprofit legal services organization. Its director of national origin and immigrants' rights programs, Christopher Ho, told Al Jazeera the determination carries weight beyond Cisco.

"The EEOC's determination is particularly significant because it appears to be the first time in any legal context where a governmental or judicial finding has sided with Big Tech workers who have collectively organised to fight for corporate accountability around their employers' sales of their technology to Israel."

Despite the June finding, EEOC mediation with Cisco has "not gone anywhere," according to reporting by The Guardian. Legal Aid at Work has since escalated, filing separate complaints with the National Labor Relations Board and the California Labor Commissioner, alleging Cisco unlawfully interfered with employees' protected right to organize around working conditions and with rights to political activity under California labor law. Ho confirmed both complaints remain pending.

Jeffrey Wang, a civil rights lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations' San Francisco Bay Area chapter, called the EEOC's finding "an important step toward accountability" and said federal civil rights protections "apply equally to Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and other employees who speak out about Palestine."

Cisco has not been quoted responding to the specific findings in the reporting reviewed for this article.