The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency tasked with enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws, has found that Cisco, the global tech company, probably violated the civil rights of Middle Eastern, Muslim and other company employees.

The determination, reached earlier this summer, is believed to be the first by the federal agency finding a major company at fault in connection to pro-Palestinian advocacy that swept campuses and workplaces in recent years.

Complaints filed by employees in December 2024 detailed how, following the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel, a Cisco internal communications platform was filled with racist and Islamophobic messages, which escalated after more than 1,700 employees signed a public letter challenging the tech giant’s ties to the Israeli government. The posts celebrated the killings of Palestinian civilians, called them animals, and targeted individual Cisco employees who had spoken up for Palestinian rights.

Margaret Ly, local director of the EEOC’s San Jose office, wrote in a 9 June letter that following an investigation the office determined that “there is reasonable cause to believe that [Cisco] 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, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”.

Cisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson told Politico that the company “disagree[d]” with the EEOC’s finding. “Cisco thoroughly investigated all concerns and took appropriate action,” the spokesperson said.

The EEOC did not respond to a request for comment. The employees also filed grievances with the National Labor Relations Board and the California labor commissioner. Both remain under review.

Christopher Ho, a director at Legal Aid at Work, which represents the Cisco employees who filed complaints, told the Guardian that the company “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”.

“This is a massive multinational corporation with all the resources in the world and they couldn’t get it right,” he added. “Thankfully the EEOC did.”

Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric was left unmoderated on Connected Jewish Network, an internal forum open to all Cisco employees, following the Hamas attacks. But the rhetoric turned to abuse and harassment directed at Cisco workers following an April 2024 open letter coordinated by “Bridge to Humanity”, or B2H, a group of mostly Palestinian, Arab and Muslim employees, which called on Cisco to disclose and end its business dealings with the Israeli military, adhere to its own human rights policy and protect those who had signed the letter from retaliation.

According to the American Friends Service Committee, which tracks global companies’ connections to Israel’s actions in Gaza, Cisco provides hardware and communications capacity to the Israeli military’s central datacenter.

Cisco treated the letter as a “form of harassment”, according to the complaints filed with the EEOC and three former employees who spoke with the Guardian on condition of anonymity out of fear of being doxed. In an internal email, Cisco said the letter was “under review” and removed it from an internal website where workers could sign on to it.

Many of the employees who led efforts to challenge the company’s ties to Israel have since been terminated, laid off or forced out of the company, the former workers said.

Several commenters on internal platforms equated support for Palestinians with antisemitism. One commented on a report about two members of a Palestinian family killed in Jerusalem, writing, “I for one am extremely grateful.”

One person wrote that those who had signed the letter denouncing Cisco’s ties to Israel should “just up and quit (not just quit Cisco, but quit living and make this world a better place for all)”. Another wrote that he had exported a roster of signatories, to which another replied, “I’m sure those who have signed aren’t very happy that [redacted] now has their names in Excel.”

Employees repeatedly flagged the posts to the company, expressing concerns that the list could be used to dox them and warning of the possible consequences for employees traveling to Palestine or whose families were based there. The company did nothing to address their concerns, the former workers said.

Cisco only responded two months after they produced a 76-page report detailing racist and hateful posts, noting it had removed some comments it had deemed to be “inappropriate”, according to internal communications reviewed by the Guardian.

While the EEOC issued its determination in June, mediation with Cisco led by the agency “didn’t go anywhere”, Ho said, and employees are currently considering next steps, including collective and individual litigation. “Of course we still hope that Cisco will come to the table,” Ho added. “These are people who were once proud to work there.”

An employee who recently left the company said that colleagues who still worked there had felt “vindicated” by the EEOC findings, but that many remained fearful of speaking up.

Cisco is one of several tech companies that have faced backlash from employees over their business ties to the Israeli government. A group of Cisco shareholders also called on the company to commission an independent human rights assessment, according to a June letter reviewed by the Guardian.

“As long-term investors, we believe effective oversight of human rights risks is increasingly important to protecting shareholder value,” they wrote.