Few issues have divided American workplaces in the past few years more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At Cisco, the rancor spilled into internal message boards, where pro-Palestinian activists were derided as animals and one worker told colleagues to “quit living.”
Now, in a rare move, a federal enforcement agency has found that Cisco likely failed to protect Muslim, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian employees from harassment as they and their co-workers debated the Hamas-led surprise attacks on Israel in 2023 and Israel’s military response in Gaza.
In a letter dated June 9, a local director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that there was reasonable cause to believe that Cisco, which makes computer networking technology, “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 letter is not a binding ruling, and both sides said the E.E.O.C. has indicated that it won’t file a lawsuit. (An E.E.O.C. spokesman said the agency couldn’t comment.) But such findings tend to bolster employees’ cases if they decide to go to court on their own. “It’s helpful, but not determinative,” said Chai Feldblum, a former E.E.O.C. commissioner.
Christopher Ho, a lawyer who brought the case to the E.E.O.C. on behalf of current and former Cisco employees, said they made the letter public last month after failing to make progress on a settlement with the company.
“My clients felt like Cisco believed they were worthy of less protection,” Mr. Ho said. “This is a belated but welcome validation of the fact that what was going on with them is very illegal.” The case argues that the harassment continues.
Robyn Blum, a Cisco spokeswoman, said in a statement that the company disagreed with the E.E.O.C. finding and that it “thoroughly investigated all concerns and took appropriate action.”
The finding is striking amid a shift in enforcement priorities by the Trump administration, whose E.E.O.C. chair has pledged to rein in what she sees as excesses in protecting certain minority groups.
“The E.E.O.C. rarely finds cause in any case,” said Mr. Ho, a lawyer with the nonprofit group Legal Aid at Work. “But I was also surprised that it took place under this administration.” Ms. Feldblum said that professional staff have traditionally produced such findings without the involvement of political appointees.
At Cisco, the hostile language toward Muslims, Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists began shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. It frequently occurred on a company-hosted forum of an employee group known as the Connected Jewish Network, according to several former Cisco workers and screen shots they shared.
In late November 2023, an employee wrote in the forum that “Israeli passers-by killed 2 members of a Palestinian family in Jerusalem this morning, and I for one am extremely grateful.” A March 2024 comment about an anti-Israel protest in Montreal referred to the protesters as animals. Other Cisco employees posting in the forum appeared to equate support for Palestinians with terrorism.
Reyhan Bilici, a former Cisco lawyer who recently announced her resignation from the company on LinkedIn, citing Islamophobia, said that such language created the impression that it didn’t matter how many professional credentials she brought to the table. “At end of the day, I will be reduced to these certain offensive terms: terrorist, animal, whatever it is,” Ms. Bilici said. “It’s completely dehumanizing.”
Wired has reported that the sense of grievance went both ways, and some Jewish employees also felt that the company did not protect them from harassment by employees sympathetic to Palestinians. The company said it investigated multiple complaints on each side and that it sought to maintain balance along the way.
In June of 2024, a group of employees calling themselves Bridge to Humanity, who were supportive of Palestinians, circulated an open letter to the leadership of Cisco calling on it to stop providing technology to the Israeli government among other demands.
A few days later, a Cisco official emailed leaders of the company’s “inclusive communities” — groups of employees who share similar identities, like ethnicity or religion — and said the open letter was under review. The official asked that leaders of inclusive communities not forward the letter and that they “escalate any concerning discussions to employee relations.” (Another Cisco official later told Bridge to Humanity members that the company wasn’t impugning its open letter, but simply asking for patience while Cisco formulated a response.)
More abusive posts followed. In July, a Cisco employee wrote in the Connected Jewish Network that co-workers who signed the letter should “just up and quit (not just quit Cisco, but quit living and make this world a better place for all.)” Another post said the letter felt like it was orchestrated from outside the company and suggested it was part of a “coordinated campaign.”
Ms. Bilici, who is part of Bridge to Humanity, said that the company’s posture, such as its cool response to the open letter, invited further harassment. “Cisco created the conditions in which people felt emboldened to ratchet up objective Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian discrimination,” she said.
Not long after, the company informed Bridge to Humanity that it was shutting down the internal site that hosted the group’s open letter and the bot that helped it collect signatures, citing internal complaints and violations of its policies. It told the members of the group in August 2024 that it had fired the employee who said signers of the letter should “quit living,” about seven weeks after members flagged the comment.
Former Cisco employees involved in Bridge to Humanity say the company has signaled that harassment of Muslim, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian employees is more acceptable than harassment of other employees.
For example, it took the company more than two months to conclusively respond to a 76-page complaint to employee relations documenting a pattern of harassment toward Muslims, Palestinians and their supporters. The company said it took down some of the offending posts and disciplined and coached some of the employees involved.
But Cisco appeared to move more quickly later the same month on a grievance in the Jewish forum. There, an employee complained about a photo in which the company’s chief people officer appeared with workers who wore T-shirts featuring the Cisco logo and a map of Israel covered in the Arabic word for Palestine, which the employee analogized to calls for Israel’s destruction.
Several hours later, the chief people officer issued an apology in the Jewish forum saying the shirts violated company policy and that she had unwittingly joined the photo at a conference. “Again, I’m sorry for being unaware of the symbolism depicted on the T-shirts,” she wrote. “I feel awful.”
Cisco said the two situations were not comparable — that the company needed weeks to investigate dozens of questionable comments, whereas the photograph incident involved a single executive apologizing for what could have been interpreted as a political statement.
The workers filed their charge with the E.E.O.C. a few months after the incident, frustrated by a perceived double standard. “In a matter of hours after people complained over a map of Palestine, she joined the space to publicly apologize,” said Sophia Filipe, a former Cisco employee who is part of the Bridge to Humanity group as well as the E.E.O.C. case, referring to the chief people officer.
“Meanwhile, death threats that are made to us, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian sentiment, were ignored. The contrast of that was huge in pushing us to go to the E.E.O.C.”
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