The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found “reasonable cause to believe” Cisco subjected Muslim and Middle Eastern employees to a hostile work environment.

Allegations arose from a group of employees who filed a complaint with the anti-discrimination agency claiming to have faced harassment for their pro-Palestine views.

A June finding from the EEOC’s San Jose, California, office, which surfaced this week, found that following an investigation there was “reasonable cause to believe that [Cisco] subjected a class of individuals to a hostile work environment based on their national origin, religion, and/or their association with Muslim and/or Middle Eastern individuals, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Title VII makes it unlawful for employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

The Cisco employees were represented by Christopher Ho, a director at Legal Aid at Work. Ho told The Guardian that the networking giant “at best failed to take their harassment seriously and, through its inaction, sent the implicit message that its pro-Palestinian employees were unworthy of protection.”

Following attacks between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023, Cisco staff claimed repeated posts on a company internal messaging platform contained racist and Islamophobic content. These messages were alleged to have celebrated the deaths of civilians.

An open letter from staff imploring the networking giant to stop its sales to the Israeli government posted to the very same platform was then alleged to have been removed and labeled as being “under review,” while other posts are alleged to have targeted individual staffers who had spoken out over its sales. Tracking by the American Friends Service Committee shows Cisco replaced Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) as the sole provider of servers for the Israeli military, a contract believed to have been initially valued at a minimum of $250 million.

It’s important to note that the EEOC’s determination is not a final legal ruling. Complaints have also been filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the California Labor Commissioner, Legal Aid at Work confirmed to Al Jazeera.

Cisco did not return SDxCentral's request for comment.

Like a lot of networking firms, Cisco has a sizable Israeli workforce. Staff at its development center in Netanya were among those axed last November as part of sweeping layoffs, local press reported at the time.