In June, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made a determination in a novel case: The agency concluded there was reasonable cause to believe Cisco had infringed on the rights of its Muslim and Middle Eastern employees, along with others who were pro-Palestine, by subjecting them to a hostile work environment.
The case was initiated by complaints from Cisco employees who claimed they faced discrimination in the aftermath of the October 2023 attacks on Israel that led to the war in Gaza, according to a report by The Guardian. The complaints alleged that employees who were openly pro-Palestine had been silenced by leadership and were the target of harassment and hateful comments in the Connected Jewish Network, an internal forum that was open to all employees.
As Wired previously reported, Cisco employees had protested the CEO’s initial response to the conflict in Gaza, which had expressed support for Israeli employees. By June 2024, a coalition called Bridge to Humanity—mostly comprised of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim employees—delivered an open letter to Cisco leadership, calling on the company to end its contracts with the Israeli government.
The discriminatory rhetoric from other employees allegedly intensified after the letter was disseminated, especially once it had drawn 1,700 signatures. According to the EEOC complaints, Cisco leadership characterized the letter as a “form of harassment” and sought to restrict access to the letter on internal platforms.
Eventually, members of Bridge to Humanity and other concerned employees put together a 76-page ethics complaint detailing the comments they claimed had turned the Connected Jewish Network into an “echo chamber for discrimination and hate speech.” (Wired reported that some Jewish employees had also felt marginalized and were frustrated the company had not done more to intervene.)
Two months later, Cisco leadership responded and said some comments would be taken down. Former employees told The Guardian that some of their colleagues who had been the most vocal and critical of Cisco’s relationship with the Israeli government had been forced out of the company or let go in some capacity.
By 2025—after the EEOC complaints had been filed—Cisco explicitly barred employees from discussing the war in Gaza, describing the topic as “too hard, too painful, too divisive,” per a Drop Site News report.
After an investigation by the EEOC field office in San Jose, California, local office director Margaret Ly found that “there is 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, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
In a statement to Fast Company, an EEOC spokesperson said, “Under federal law, both charges filed with, and charge inquiries made to the EEOC are confidential. The EEOC can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any charge or charge inquiry.”
When reached by Fast Company, Cisco disputed the EEOC’s determination. “Cisco is committed to fostering a respectful, inclusive workplace where every employee is treated with fairness and dignity, and we take any concerns about discrimination or harassment seriously,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We disagree with the EEOC’s district office findings. Aligned with the company’s commitment to being an equal opportunity employer, Cisco thoroughly investigated all concerns and took appropriate action.”
Cisco is one of several tech companies that have faced this kind of dissent and worker activism over the past few years. As the war in Gaza unfolded, many tech giants were forced to grapple with employees who urged them to sever ties with Israel.
At Google, employees had already been protesting Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government, but those efforts escalated after 2023. Dozens of employees participated in demonstrations and sit-in protests in 2024 (after which Google fired about 50 people).
A Palestinian employee at Amazon—which is also part of Project Nimbus—was reportedly fired for demanding that his employer end its relationship with Israel. Employees at Microsoft have ramped up pressure on leadership to cancel the company’s contracts with the Israeli government, even disrupting company events last year to confront executives.
It’s not clear what may come of the EEOC’s determination in Cisco’s case; the employees who brought complaints are considering litigation after conciliation efforts with the company stalled. But it could lead employers to clamp down on political speech going forward, in stark contrast to the values of “conscious culture” that companies like Cisco have long espoused.
