Cisco accused of fostering a hostile workplace for Muslim and Arab employees

By Al Jazeera Staff. Published On 1 Sep 20261 Sep 2026.

Key points

• The document was signed by more than 1, 700 of the company's more than 86, 000 employees.
• Legal Aid at Work informed Al Jazeera that it has additionally submitted a complaint against Cisco to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the California Labor Commissioner.
• The report, which was provided to Cisco's Employee Relations and Ethics offices, according to documents created public by The Guardian, outlined the waves of hate comments.
• This person had been voicing worries that the company's technology was provided to the Israeli military for employ in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
• It continued that the Connected Jewish Network was not even a "safe space for all of our Jewish colleagues".

In practice, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has discovered that the networking technology business Cisco may have violated the civil rights of Middle Eastern and Muslim employees against the backdrop of a wave of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments on internal messaging platforms at the business.

In June, the EEOC, which is tasked with enforcing the US's anti-discrimination laws, remarked Cisco subjected its employees to a hostile work environment, according to a letter of determination obtained by Al Jazeera.

For context, the letter, which was first documented by Politico Pro, stemmed from a complaint filed with the EEOC in December 2024 by a group of Cisco employees called "Bridge to Humanity" (B2H). This person had been voicing worries that the company's technology was provided to the Israeli military for employ in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.

In practice, a number of months earlier, the group of employees had sent a separate open letter calling on the San Jose, California-based business to stop providing its technology to the Israeli administration. The document was signed by more than 1, 700 of the company's more than 86, 000 employees.

In its December complaint filed with the EEOC, the employees alleged that Cisco had removed the open letter from an internal site and that it was "under review", and that subsequently, plenty of of the signatories were harassed. Among the allegations was a remark that one employee had informed another to "quit living".

Notably, the employees additionally alleged that Cisco had not responded to their complaints until they created a 76-page report cataloguing the hate comments they had been subjected to in an internal messaging group called Connected Jewish Network.

Notably, the report, which was provided to Cisco's Employee Relations and Ethics offices, according to documents created public by The Guardian, outlined the waves of hate comments. In one of these, from November 2023, an unnamed employee had remarked 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, joked about respecting a person's gender identity, " the 76-page report remarked. It continued that the Connected Jewish Network was not even a "safe space for all of our Jewish colleagues".

According to The EEOC's determination, the business had retaliated against one unnamed staffer for "her involvement in pro-Palestine efforts by terminating the individual".

Meanwhile, the employees' complaint with the EEOC was filed by Legal Aid at Work, a nonprofit legal services organisation.

"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, " Christopher Ho, director of the national origin and immigrants' rights programme at Legal Aid at Work, informed Al Jazeera.

Advocacy groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) praised the decision.

"The EEOC's finding is an important step toward accountability and a reminder that federal civil rights protections apply equally to Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and other employees who speak out about Palestine, " civil rights managing lawyer Jeffrey Wang at CAIR's San Francisco Bay-area chapter remarked in an official note.

"Employers have a legal responsibility to address harassment and discrimination fairly and consistently. Workers should not have to fear retaliation or a hostile work environment since of their religion, national origin, or association with protected communities."

Although the EEOC problems its determination in June, the agency's mediation with the business has "not gone anywhere", according to reporting by The Guardian.

" allege, respectively, that Cisco unlawfully interfered with our clients' federally protected right to engage in concerted activity to improve working conditions, and unlawfully interfered with their right to engage in political activities that is protected by the California Labor Code. Both these complaints are still pending at the respective agencies, " Ho remarked. Al Jazeera reached out to the EEOC for comment.

"Under federal law, both charges filed with, and charge inquiries created to the EEOC are confidential. The EEOC can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any charge or charge inquiry, " an EEOC spokesperson remarked. Cisco did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment.

Taken together, the developments around cisco accused of fostering a hostile workplace for Muslim and Arab employees point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.