Revealed: Cisco talks with pro-Palestine employees over discrimination complaint collapse

Submitted by Areeb Ullah on Tue, 09/22/2026 - 15:46 Conciliation talks followed US employment agency investigation, which found tech firm had likely subjected Muslim and Middle Eastern workers to a 'hostile environment'

Cisco's headquarters in San Jose, California, in August 2025 (AFP) Off

Conciliation talks mediated by a US federal agency between Cisco and a group of its own employees over complaints that the company discriminated against pro-Palestine workers have broken down after the technology firm was accused of failing to engage with the process in good faith, Middle East Eye can reveal.

The talks were facilitated by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that investigates allegations of worker discrimination, following a complaint by Bridge to Humanity (B2H), a group of Cisco employees created to raise concerns about the company's ties with the Israeli military.

In a letter in June, the head of the EEOC's local office in San Jose told Cisco and lawyers representing B2H that she had determined there was reasonable cause to believe the company had subjected some employees from Muslim and Middle Eastern backgrounds to a "hostile work environment" and proposed conciliation talks between the two parties.

Cisco has said it disagrees with the EEOC's view and is "committed to fostering a respectful, inclusive workplace".

In the letter, the EEOC official proposed conciliation talks between the parties. This is a voluntary and confidential process mediated by the agency which aims to resolve employment disputes informally after an investigation has concluded.

Talks on an online video platform were then scheduled to take place in August.

But MEE understands that these collapsed before any negotiations had taken place, with the EEOC official telling B2H representatives and their lawyers that Cisco was not engaged in the process.

“Today CISCO has not come to the conversation in good faith,” the investigator said, according to multiple people present at the meeting who spoke to MEE. “I cannot allow conversations to continue.”

Christopher Ho, programme director for Legal Aid at Work and the lawyer representing B2H, described the abrupt end to the conciliation process as a "surprise" to his clients.

“We participated in conciliation for three hours, with little communication from Cisco. Around that time, the EEOC representative entered our virtual room and stated that Cisco would not respond to the EEOC’s proposal, and that therefore the EEOC was going to ‘fail’ the conciliation - which means ending it,” Ho told MEE.

“It was a surprise because we hadn’t even exchanged settlement proposals with Cisco.”

Despite the collapsed mediation, Ho described the EEOC’s intervention as unprecedented, highlighting the significance of a case "where a group of tech employees who have organised collectively for such accountability has been harassed or otherwise treated unlawfully for speaking, and then vindicated by a federal agency".

Cisco offered no comment on the allegation that it had failed to engage with conciliation talks.

A spokesperson said the company 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".

“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," the spokesperson added.

“As stewards of our employee culture, we remain open to feedback and committed to evolving thoughtfully as we navigate a complex global environment.”

The EEOC did not respond to requests for comment and it remains unclear what happens next.

B2H and its lawyers declined to comment on the prospects of any further action.

'Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment'

Aamir Ahmad, a finance manager at Cisco, also welcomed the EEOC's intervention in the case.

“The fact that the EEOC, now operating under the direction of the [US President Donald] Trump administration, sided with the complainants goes to show how egregious the violations actually were,” Ahmad told MEE.

"As far as the EEOC ruling goes, I don’t believe Cisco is taking any action on that."

Ahmad said the company had said it wanted to meet with leaders of the Palestine Network at Cisco (PNC), but he was not sure when a meeting would take place.

The B2H complaint that sparked the EEOC investigation cited alleged anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments posted on the company’s internal messaging service and in affinity groups administered by Cisco.

In June 2024, B2H sent an open letter to Cisco executives calling on the company to stop selling its technology to the Israeli government, disinvest from specific Israeli entities, establish equal pay between its Palestinian and Israeli employees, and comply with its own standards.

Approximately 1,700 employees signed the open letter, but following publication, Cisco told B2H it was taking down the document.

According to an anonymous Cisco employee who spoke to MEE, the internal climate became increasingly hostile after the open letter was shared.

Letters removed

'What kind of message is Cisco sending to the world when they are treating employees in such a fashion?'

- Aamir Ahmad, Cisco employee

Following the open letter's publication and its subsequent removal from Cisco's internal pages, B2H sent a second letter to the company, raising concerns that employees who had signed the open letter were being doxxed.

MEE has seen screenshots in which a Cisco employee appears to describe exporting a list of the signatories to a spreadsheet in order to keep tabs on them.

These concerns ultimately drove Reyhan Bilici, a former Cisco lawyer, to announce her resignation on LinkedIn, citing Islamophobia.

“When I resigned, I distributed my resignation letter widely via email, direct messages and in a number of community spaces, including a community called SafeSpace, which is supposed to encourage open conversation,” Bilici told MEE.

"I am told my letter was quickly removed by SafeSpace’s moderator and because folks were upset by this, the moderator was forced to explain that he discussed it with an Executive Leadership Team member and was directed to remove it by Cisco Leadership."

Ahmad said such episodes reflected an apparent disconnect between the company’s public image and its internal reality.

“The company espouses an inclusive culture, but then exposes vulnerable employees to such vitriol,” he told MEE.

“What kind of message is Cisco sending to the world when they are treating employees in such a fashion? Cisco has partners and employees in the Middle East, and when they try to bring up these concerns, you dismiss them.

“They go to a third party to get some justice and to have someone see their point of view, and Cisco just dismisses it.”

Ahmad told MEE he also had concerns about the way in which Cisco had handled a recent round of layoffs, after the company announced in May that it was cutting around 4,000 jobs despite reporting record profits for the quarter of $15.8bn.

Inside the campaign to end Microsoft's collaboration with the Israeli army Read More »

Cisco is among a number of prominent tech companies, including Meta, PayPal and Amazon, to have reduced their workforce over the past year as a result of a restructuring within the industry towards artificial intelligence, resulting in the reported loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the tech sector.

“From my standpoint, there have been several rounds of layoffs, and a lot of pro-Palestine voices have been disproportionately cut,” Ahmad told MEE.

Cisco offered no comment on the concerns raised in this article by former and current employees.

Ahmad said that he and others are now weighing their own futures at the company.

“I feel stuck. A lot of people feel the same way. I feel accountable to God, and it’s part of my religion,” Ahmad said.

“Personally, I’m in a tough spot. People within my professional and personal network have asked me: ‘How can you still work at a company that basically hates you?’

"I have tough conversations trying to reconcile that with my financial and familial obligations."

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