Cisco Fires Employees for Criticizing Black Lives Matter During Online Diversity Forum
Another example of criticism of Black Lives Matter movement falsely being equated with racism: “the world’s largest networking company, said it fired “a handful” of workers for inappropriate conduct because it “will not tolerate” racism”
It becomes increasingly clear that criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement is simply not allowed. The tech company Cisco recently had an online meeting with employees to discuss diversity and related matters.
When the conversation turned to Black Lives Matter, some employees offered negative comments and were fired.
Ian Miles Cheong writes at The Post Millennial:
Cisco fires employees criticizing Black Lives Matter
Tech giant Cisco has reportedly fired a number of its employees for making comments critical of Black Lives Matter, including the statement “all lives matter” in response to the popular refrain.
ReclaimTheNet reports that the employees were fired for commenting on a video conference by the company’s CEO and other top executives, who expressed vocal support for the Black Lives Matter organization.
The publication reports that an internal company survey found that only 3.8% of Cisco employees were black, and that the executives at the top committed itself to changing this number by hiring more black employees…
The conference, which was was broadcast to more than 30,000 of Cisco’s employees worldwide and met a mixture of support and apprehension, some of whom were critical of the decision to throw in with the Marxist-oriented “racial justice” organization.
Nico Grant and Ian King of Bloomberg have more details:
Cisco Fires Workers for Racial Comments During Diversity Forum
During a series of Cisco Systems Inc. online all-hands meetings on race in early June, some workers posted comments in message channels that other staff and company management said were demeaning to Black people, exposing racial divisions at the Silicon Valley tech giant and leading to the dismissal of a number of people.
During the first videoconference on June 1, following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins spoke with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, who is Black, and Bryan Stevenson, a Black lawyer and author who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, in front of 30,000 employees. The conversations about race continued in subsequent online global staff meetings.
“Black lives don’t matter. All lives matter,” one worker wrote in the comments during one of the virtual all-hands meetings, according to screen shots obtained by Bloomberg. Another said the phrase Black Lives Matter “reinforces racism” because it singles out one ethnic group. “People who complain about racism probably have been a racist somewhere else to people from another race or part of systematic oppression in their own community!” a third worker wrote in the chat section visible for all those online.
Cisco, the world’s largest networking company, said it fired “a handful” of workers for inappropriate conduct because it “will not tolerate” racism.
This is another example of criticism of Black Lives Matter movement falsely being equated with racism.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Do these fired employees have legal grounds for a discrimination lawsuit?
Not unless they’re in a state that bans discrimination on the basis of political opinion.
CICSO is based in CA and as far as I understand, they do.
*CISCO
Cisco Means KKK.
It’s election year again, and the Democrat party needs their black slaves.
AskQanon⭐️⭐️⭐️
@
This is what George Soros paid for and what the Democrats want because it’s an election year. Wake up America ?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1272333499463319553
Ibid.
The US Supreme Court ruled against George Soros. He can no longer apply for federal funds to promote anti-American organizations.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1284120836945907712
https://twitter.com/i/status/1273277453528641537
Cisco the New Nazi SS…….
That is bullshit. Qanon and OAN are lying to you. The decision had nothing to do with that. In fact in 2013 the SCOTUS held that the government can not force US organizations to parrot government policy as a condition of receiving funds. This year’s case said that this does not apply to foreign organizations. Neither case had any connection to Soros.
Michigan Teacher Fired After Tweeting ‘Trump Is Our President’
I’m done being silent. @realDonaldTrump is our president ❌?
Don’t @ me
— Coach Kucera (@CoachKWLW) July 7, 2020
He can’t even just make that comment on his own account. Yet out and out leftist political teaching in schools is just fine.
Via Free Beacon:
A Michigan school district fired a popular high school teacher and coach after he pointed out that “Trump is our president” on social media.
Varsity baseball coach and social studies teacher Justin Kucera said Walled Lake school district officials hauled him into a closed-door meeting after he indicated his support for President Trump’s speech to reopen schools. He told the Washington Free Beacon the Walled Lake Western principal and district superintendent gave him an ultimatum: be fired or resign.
“I was required to meet with [human resources], the superintendent, and my principal [on July 10]. They initially took my statement on why I tweeted those tweets and they told me they would have a decision about my future employment in the upcoming days. When they completed the meeting, I was told I had the option to either be fired or resign.” Kucera said….
Weazil Zippers
Generally speaking a business may restrict the use of its resources (computers, etc) to business use only. These resources are not there to aid you in expressing your political views or to lobby company executives to get involved in non-business related political causes.
Even when the company makes presentations and an open forum for employees to discuss the issue?
As pst314 said all these people did was express their opinion on a COMPANY online meeting – NO MISUSE of company equipment !
But gotta be a GOOD COMMIE AND ACCEPT THE FORCED GROUPTHINK !!
@dystopia wrote: “Generally speaking a business may restrict the use of its resources (computers, etc) to business use only. These resources are not there to aid you in expressing your political views or to lobby company executives to get involved in non-business related political causes.“
That only applies if you don’t agree with the Marxist propaganda. Those resources are OK when it’s the cancel culture that wants to aid in the expression of political views or lobby to employees who better get involved with the acceptable non-business related political causes.
If a business allows the use of company resources by employees to in further a non-business related political viewpoint, but censors opposing viewpoints there may be a cause of action in States that protect employment discrimination based on political view point.
You’d think that by now even new-hire employees would understand that those who organize and lead diversity workshops, forums, etc. have exactly zero interest in anyone’s opinion other than their own. They’re looking for consent and agreement, not discussion.
Perhaps the screens should be required to display a corporate Miranda, “Anything you say can and probably will be used against you”?
But, they’re not. An honest new-hire orientation would make this clear, along with hammering home “there’s no expectation of privacy here, ever.”
But if diversity facilitators were interested in honesty and truth they wouldn’t be part of the diversity industry, would they?
Nonetheless, you’d think by now everyone would understand that they and not you are the facilitators, and regardless of whether it’s called a “forum” or a “training” or whatever that, really, it’s an inquisition whose primary purpose is to enforce conformity (although if some employees are so foolish as to present as heretics, culling the workforce of such is an added benefit).
So in a conversation with the CEO about ice cream its inappropriate to mention that chocolate is far better than vanilla?
CISCO would argue before a court that the employees’ comments were not political, that is, they were not advocating a political party or candidate, or a position taken by a political party or candidate.
However, since there seem to be multiple parties involved, perhaps the employees could form a class action and reduce their individual legal costs.
add any employees who were afraid to speak out and the number grows.
California law may technically prohibit discrimination on the basis of political beliefs, but in California the real applications of the law are such as to mandate discrimination against those who oppose the Leftist party line.
Subotai Bahadur
Certainly any Cisco employee who works in California would be protected by the California law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of political opinion. As to employees working outside CA, I don’t know.
Don’t know California but Texas you can fire someone for no reason without exposure, but you can’t fire for the wrong reason.. wrongful termination will bring a civil lawsuit. Then you would have to deal with a California jury pool.
Sure, Texas allows firings for most anything. What will drive any wrongful termination efforts in this case outside of CA. will be what is written in the company policy/procedure manual. I’ve seen firings take place in “at will” states that were for what appeared to be valid reasoning only to be lost in courts because the firing manager didn’t follow written company procedures. To me from what we see these firings seem extreme unless there is underlying circumstances that we are unaware of.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, especially as it relates to political speech. The enemies of liberty know that they have to screw up the language in order to demoralize all those who think that the U. S. Constitution is a valid document. The enemies want to destabilize the government, and ultimately destroy it, along with the economic system. They are using our own laws and language to do it. See “The Law”, by Fredrick Bastiat.
The company statement says employees were released because CISCO will not tolerate “racism”. I hope the employees join together and file suit.
Might the employees have a libel/slander lawsuit against Cisco for falsely claiming they are racists?
When they opened the forum for comment by their employees did they tell them that any dissent would terminate their employment?
Seeing how CISCO asked for their employees opinions on this issue it’s hard to see how their allowed to fire people whose opinions they don’t like.
Can they check the voter rolls and fire anyone who is registered as Republican?
In most states, yes, they can.
This is only the beginning of the purges.
First, they fire the people foolish enough to speak up.
Next, they’ll start demanding people declare their loyalty verbally. That is, people will be required to say, “I support BLM.”
Then they’ll broaden the ideology. People will also be required to say they support defunding the police, or universal health care, or Jon Biden – something.
Eventually, when everyone has been trained that disagreement = unemployment and social death, they’ll institute laws actually criminalizing “racist” things like going to church, or disagreeing with the wrong people.
And Conservatives will have allowed it all to happen because, well gosh! You can’t keep a private company from managing its own people. Even if it doesn’t seem fair, it’s their right!
Cultural Revolution led by the Red Guard.
Are we not in a civil war?
It requires multiple sides fighting openly for civil war. Currently, as usual, we are simply under attack.
With the Dem politicians surrendering it appears.
You misspelled “colluding.” 😉
We are in a hot civil war with (so far) a relatively low number of fatalities exclusively on one side.
This apparently was not a discussion. It was an indoctrination meeting for counterrevolutionaries to self-identify.
These are the people who want to control our lives. What could go wrong with that?
Brainwashing.
“And Conservatives will have allowed it all to happen…”
That’s the most important thing you said.
Message to fellow Conservatives: let’s not allow it to happen again.
STOP RE-ELECTING GOP TRASH!
I had one of these a few years ago. The black racist in charge wanted to fire me. However, she couldn’t answer why I need to see her by race and not HR. She was forced to back down.
I think it would be wise for everyone to think about what they intend to do when (not “if”) their employer demands they take a knee to the BLM swastika.
Get a lawyer. You’ll be glad you did.
Every politician in DC has taken money from Silicon Valley to look the other way when clear incidents of discrimination occur. This period in American history will portray the tech sector as one the most discriminatory ever, all in pursuit of diversity.
I think the answer is more simple: they’re selling out to the ChiComms.
A lot of Cisco stuff is just Chinese rubbish anyway.
If you want to understand how an entire well-educated, industrialized German society in the 1920’s and 30’s could empower the German National Socialists, with such little collective opposition, you have only to witness what is happening now in the U.S., with the Marxist, Jew-hating, subversive and mendacious “Black Lives Matters” radical jackboots being elevated to a position of ideological sanctification and reverence by an utterly cowed, feckless and meek corporate management.
It’s not just corporate management that is cowed, feckless and meek. Take a walk through a Krogers or Walmart and look at the whipped, shuffling mask-wearing legion.
There wasn’t a lot of choice. There were no liberals in German politics; the only choice voters had was which flavor of socialist would-be dictators should hold power over their lives. Can’t blame them for choosing one over the other.
There is little upside in volunteering your opinion and big potential downside in getting dragged into a political controversy. Don’t talk about anything but your work and start looking for other employment and leaving on your terms and your convenience. Beneficiaries of affirmative action will likely have credentials but lack critical skills or the ability to develop such skills. Their program of hiring based on skin tone will not find one or two capable employees but is much more likely to get employees with chips on their shoulders and demands for promotion that will sue if you fire them or not promote them.
The Cisco employees should consider themselves lucky. In some places, you can get killed for saying “All lives matter.”
When will enough be enough?
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/family-of-downtown-canal-shooting-victim-seeks-justice/531-ce60ebbd-49b4-4b40-99b5-3f0e7a8e3b40
“When will enough be enough?”…
When we destroy the leaders of the movement and their money people.
Then enough will be enough.
This is why we don’t have conversations about race.
Some, select, Black Lives Matter or Some, select Black Lives Matter is a Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, politically congruent (“=”) religious sect.
Diversity dogma denies individual dignity, denies individual conscience, practices affirmative discrimination, perceives reality in color blocs (i.e. color judgments), and established color quotas is inclusive of racism, sexism, and other class-based taxonomies. #HateTrumpsLove #HateLovesAbortion
Another classic Twilight Zone story line that no one would have ever believed possible.
As a social worker, I’ve know for the last 20+ years to never, ever share my political or social beliefs at work. Hell, I won’t even “friend” a co-worker on Facebook or “connect” with them on LinkedIn. To much of a risk.
Seems to me to be a false sense of security. Post them anywhere, and they will still easily get back to your co-workers or anyone else who decides to go looking. The left has an organized doxxer corps adept at finding things you said, wrote, or posted decades ago, to anybody.
We are in an upside down world folks, which has been carefully crafted by the enemies of liberty over the past three or four decades. Simply, the plan is as follows: 1. disinformation, 2. demoralization, 3. destabilization, and 4. destruction. The four pronged approach is currently aimed at people who can still determine eternal truths. They must now be conquered in order for the totalitarian “leaders” to take charge. Watch closely. It is happening around us in real time.
/
Staff meetings, by definition, include discussion between management and employees – Q&A sessions – provide a forum for feedback. It sounds to me like these meetings facilitated – even solicited feedback and the employees were fired for participating.
I don’t see how saying “All lives matter” in response to “Black lives matter” can possibly be interpreted as “racist” since the term “all lives” includes “black lives”. Couldn’t one of the programmers at Cisco have explained to management that “Black lives” is a subset of “All lives” – and those who use the term “All lives” are being “inclusive”? “Black lives” is exclusive and therefore racist.
Oh, stop trying to apply logic to Liberals
Modern liberalism is a cult, headed by corrupt leaders laughing all the way to the bank.
Right, pelosi?
When the State Society chooses 1 + 1 = 3 as an oath of loyalty, people pointing out that 1 + 1 = 2 because it is “logical” enjoy no traction whatsoever. Logic isn’t the goal. The goal is submission.
“Networking gear” is far more than connected data pipes, these days.
/Adjusts Tinfoil Hat
What kind of “traffic shaping” across multiple network layers, wrangled via proprietary device-to-device protocols does LI’s presence have to navigate? And you don’t know it, and can’t see it happen.
Not speculating … I’ve been in this biz.
Google’s search manipulation, Twitter’s shadow banning, Facebook’s content screening, comment systems’ content filtering, are all visible. The stuff in the tubes is not, n the knobs n levers are held by the same wokescolds who sent the CEOs running.
People like those spineless “leaders” and the gibbering mobs behind them, have their hands on info controls you dont even know exist. And they’ve demonstrated that they’ll do literally anything.
Remember when US Fed public safety wanted to mandate that home routers have a “take over” mode for observation n comms for fire departments … who could object? And for arrest raids. And investigations. And surveilling people maybe 2 investigate, and…
Those capabilities n more have been built into multiple layers of “your” networking gear. And check out Intel’s Chipset-Level management architecture – there’s another CPU in yr CPU that answers commands u don’t know about, underneath all the security you can try. It runs invisible code, that can remotely update, once it’s in contact.
And you thought Windoze was just well-marketed malware…
/It is way too hot out today to be wearing a tinfoil body suit.
So, as a techie, please explain how to combat/deconstruct/thwart this . . .
First step is to know it exists, and I would think the best second step is to go searching for your own news for many multiple sources.
I would also strongly recommend avoiding gmail, google maps, and google docs. These are scanned constantly by google, supposedly for ad placement. If you don’t pay for a service you are the product.
Global Chinese communist party purge.
This should surprise no one with a knowledge of history. The Associated Press, Coca-Cola, and IBM were companies that openly collaborated with the Nazis before WWII.
And it’s not just a business decision. Like the companies that supported Hitler, Cisco and others collaborate with BLM because the leadership of these companies are ok with the idea of a racial holocaust.
Of the three you mentioned… ah.. Coca Cola franchise in Germany was saved by one individual (Max Keith..not a Nazi sympathizer) and as with many businesses “invested” in Germany in the late 1920’s-early 1930’s. (see Hjalmar Schacht…and some Bush guy). Investing is not collaboration. So… do we purge Fanta. Do we purge Demerol? Do we purge IM rods to fix fractures?
Oh… as for AP and IBM… I am with you on that.
I disagree. Keith, in order to keep the Germany market humming, targeted the Nazi Party and the Hitler Youth in an aggressive marketing campaign. He also sucked up to Nazi bigwigs more than was needed to keep his company afloat.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/major-brands-nazi-collaborators/3
It is debatable whether this constituted collaboration, and reasonable people can reach different conclusions. IMHO it does count as collaboration (albeit on a low level), since Keith was almost certainly aware of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, and apparently didn’t care. But considering the fact that the American Red Guard luvs to cancel people and organizations who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Nazis or KKK, it only seems fitting that Coke get its comeuppance for what it really did do.
And Coke is deeply in bed with the BLM brownshirts, so any blood BLM sheds is on Coke’s hands (and on the hands of other “woke” corporations).
Here is a bit more about Max Keith, who frankly was more than a wartime opportunist merely trying to keep his company in the black. He seems to have escaped prison only because he was such a tiny fish, and the victorious Allies has bigger game to go after.
http://www.xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/coke/coke2.html
sigh guess I crossed a comedic line that cannot be crossed so will try again w/o the tongue in cheek part..
cisco switch thine self and reroute to heal.
If these statements were problematic, they should have been used as teaching moments.
How can you fire anyone before you educate them about newly determined and defined terms and conditions?
Democrats – Republicans. What a crock. There is only one party, and we’re not invited. Cisco is only doing what every failure is doing: which is knee-jerk reaction to any White criticizing anything blacks do in the course of destroying White civilization.
De gustibus non disputandem est.
“‘In matters of taste, there can be no disputes” (literally, “about tastes, it should not be disputed/discussed’).
“The phrase is commonly rendered in English as ‘There is no accounting for taste(s).’ The implication is that everyone’s personal preferences are merely subjective opinions that cannot be right or wrong, so they should never be argued about as if they were.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum#:~:text=De%20gustibus%20non%20est%20disputandum%2C%20or%20de%20gustibus,as%20%22There%20is%20no%20accounting%20for%20taste%20%28s%29.%22
No more readily assumable, that once-revered maxim. We are thus on the cusp, if not already in the throes, of acute and rapid cultural decline, disintegration, and incipient civil war between the still free and brave legal insurrectionists, and the anarchic and nihilistic, militant and Maoist others.
The long-traveled, millennia-borne road to individual freedom and dignity is most seriously infringed.
The on-treading will erode, for the time being, beginning in Portland, and, soon thereafter, in Chicago, Minneapolis, and maybe St Louis and New York, among others — Dem-and-now-Lefty-Globe, updated antebellum plantations, all.
Reconstruction 2.0 follows.
So far in this article I’ve seen the burning of heretics, and the commitment to outright quotas. The only thing missing here is outright financial contributions to enemies of America. Of course, the article isn’t about that issue, so it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
Cisco is the Microsoft of networking, and I use that term in the fully pejorative sense. Before buying from these entitled narcissists, I’d check out the alternatives, including a little European company called Mikrotik, whose gear can do pretty much everything Cisco can at a tenth of the the price or less. Mikrotik is located in Latvia, which these days I guess qualifies them as white nationalists, but also makes them firsthand authorities about the wonders of life in a communist workers’ paradise.
Thanks for an alternative to Cisco.
I’m in the process of purchasing licenses for their WebEx app.
Then I read this article.
I’m going to hang a banner in my background that says ALL lives matter for tomorrow’s WebEx meeting with Cisco employees and management. Their reaction will determine whether I buy the licenses or not.
I’d be interested in your decision. (I also consult. 🙂
Still not sure which app I’m going to use. WebEx seems the most stable and secure. what would you recommend? gary gimp (one word) a t pm dot me
How many Red China bargains does Cisco stock? What we have is the treason of America’s corporate elite.
Fascism is alive and well in corporate America. If you own stock in any of these companies, please vote to remove management the next time there is a shareholders meeting. It may not be enough to remove them but hopefully it will send a message.
ANY group with an agenda based on, and/or promoting ONLY a certain Race or Color over others is RACIST.
Black Lives Matter is an explicitly racist-anti-White, pro-Black supremacist organization. Interestingly, if you fail to endorse their racism or, heaven forbid, criticize it, you will, at a minimum, be labeled a racist.