employees

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found that the networking technology company Cisco may have violated the civil rights of Middle Eastern and Muslim employees amid a wave of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments on internal messaging platforms at the company.

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

The letter, which was first reported 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), who had been voicing concerns that the company’s technology was provided to the Israeli military for use in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Several months earlier, the group of employees had sent a separate open letter calling on the San Jose, California-based company to stop providing its technology to the Israeli government. 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, many of the signatories were harassed. Among the allegations was a remark that one employee had told another to “quit living”.

The employees also 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.

The report, which was provided to Cisco’s Employee Relations and Ethics offices, according to documents made public by The Guardian, outlined the waves of hate comments. In one of these, from November 2023, an unnamed employee had said 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 said. It added that the Connected Jewish Network was not even a “safe space for all of our Jewish colleagues”.

The EEOC’s determination said that the company had retaliated against one unnamed staffer for “her involvement in pro-Palestine efforts by terminating the individual”.

‘Important step’

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, told 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 said in a statement.

“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 because of their religion, national origin, or association with protected communities.”

According to reporting by The Guardian, although the EEOC issues its determination in June, the agency’s mediation with the company has “not gone anywhere”.

Legal Aid at Work told Al Jazeera that it has also submitted a complaint against Cisco to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the California Labor Commissioner.

“[The complaints] 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 said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the EEOC for comment.

“Under federal law, both charges filed with, and charge inquiries made to the EEOC are confidential. The EEOC can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any charge or charge inquiry,” an EEOC spokesperson said.

Cisco did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — Three Secret Service employees have been put on administrative leave during an investigation into “potential misconduct,” the agency confirmed.

The three staffers are “non-law enforcement personnel,” including Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi and two others in the agency’s communications office, CNN, CBS News and The Hill reported. CNN first reported the investigation.

It isn’t clear what the “potential misconduct” was or why they were put on leave.

The employees lost their security clearances and access to work devices, which is common practice during internal investigations.

A Secret Service spokesperson said the investigation is being handled by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

“The U.S. Secret Service is committed to upholding the highest standards of professionalism and integrity in fulfilling our zero-fail mission of protecting the President and other high-level government officials. Our critical work demands that our workforce maintain an unwavering commitment to duty, honesty, and courage in all aspects of their jobs. We will continue to pursue the level of excellence that is worthy of the mission which has been entrusted to us by the American people,” the spokesperson said.

On Tuesday, the Secret Service said it was “aware” of a video by Iran threatening Barron Trump’s life.

A week ago, the Secret Service launched a probe into a member of Vice President JD Vance’s security detail for allegedly leaking sensitive information.

The agency has faced intense scrutiny over several assassination plots and attempts on President Donald Trump‘s life.