A federally mediated conciliation process between tech giant Cisco and a group of its pro-Palestine employees has collapsed entirely after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) determined the company refused to participate in good faith, exclusive reporting from Middle East Eye has confirmed.
The dispute dates back to early 2024, when a group of Cisco employees launched Bridge to Humanity (B2H), an organizing body formed to call attention to the firm’s business ties to the Israeli military. In June 2024, B2H published an open letter to Cisco executive leadership demanding the company end technology sales to the Israeli government, divest from targeted Israeli entities, implement equal pay for Palestinian and Israeli staff, and uphold its own internal equity policies. The letter garnered nearly 1,700 employee signatures, but Cisco quickly removed the document from its internal platforms.
In the wake of the open letter’s publication, employees reported a sharp rise in hostile internal conditions. B2H later filed a formal discrimination complaint with the EEOC, alleging anti-Arab and anti-Muslim harassment on internal messaging channels and company-run affinity groups. The group also raised alarms that an employee compiled a spreadsheet of all open letter signatories to monitor their activity, and that multiple signatories had been doxxed. These allegations pushed former Cisco corporate lawyer Reyhan Bilici to resign from the firm publicly on LinkedIn, citing institutionalized Islamophobia within the company. Bilici told Middle East Eye that after she shared her resignation letter across internal employee communities, Cisco leadership forced moderators to remove the post from a space intended for open dialogue.
Following its investigation, the head of the EEOC’s San Jose local office ruled in June that there was reasonable cause to believe Cisco had created a hostile work environment for multiple Muslim and Middle Eastern employees who expressed pro-Palestine views. The agency then scheduled voluntary, confidential conciliation talks — an informal dispute resolution process overseen by the EEOC — to resolve the claims in August.
However, the planned negotiations collapsed before any substantive discussions could begin. Christopher Ho, program director at Legal Aid at Work and lead counsel for B2H, told Middle East Eye that after three hours of waiting for Cisco to engage, the EEOC lead investigator announced the process would be terminated because the company had refused to respond to the agency’s settlement proposal. Ho noted that the abrupt end came as a shock, as B2H had not even had the chance to exchange formal settlement offers with Cisco representatives.
Despite the collapse of mediation, Ho emphasized that the EEOC’s finding of reasonable cause marked an unprecedented win for organized tech workers. “It is significant that 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,” Ho explained.
Cisco has publicly pushed back against the EEOC’s findings, maintaining that it is dedicated to upholding an inclusive, respectful workplace. “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,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. The firm declined to issue any specific comment on the allegation that it refused to participate in conciliation in good faith, nor did it respond to multiple other complaints raised by current and former employees, including claims that pro-Palestine voices were disproportionately targeted in recent layoffs.
In May 2024, Cisco announced plans to cut roughly 4,000 roles, a move that came just after the company reported record quarterly profits of $15.8 billion. The layoff is part of a broader industry-wide restructuring among major U.S. tech firms including Meta, Amazon, and PayPal, which have cut tens of thousands of jobs overall as companies shift resources toward artificial intelligence development. Cisco finance manager Aamir Ahmad, one of the B2H organizers, told Middle East Eye that multiple rounds of layoffs at the company have disproportionately targeted staff who spoke out in support of Palestine.
Ahmad also praised the EEOC’s intervention, noting that even the agency’s finding of reasonable cause underscores the severity of the violations the employees reported. “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 said. He added that there is a clear disconnect between Cisco’s public branding as an inclusive employer and its internal treatment of vulnerable Muslim and Middle Eastern staff: “The company espouses an inclusive culture, but then exposes vulnerable employees to such vitriol. 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 dismiss it.”
Ahmad said many pro-Palestine staff at Cisco now face an impossible choice between their personal convictions and their financial livelihoods. “I feel stuck. A lot of people feel the same way. 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,” he said.
As of press time, it remains unclear what下一步 steps will be taken in the dispute. The EEOC has not responded to requests for comment on the collapsed talks, and B2H and its legal team have declined to share details about potential future action.