The student-led organization, Open University Friends of Palestine, which has been demanding the Open University drop Cisco due to its ties to Israel, disrupt online cisco event to tell them they won’t allow Cisco to present their facade of an ethics driven company to students
On February 25th 2026, Cisco hosted an online promotional event for students, aimed at painting a glossy picture of Cisco as a conscious company. However, any students that shared concerns about Cisco’s partnerships with the Israeli military were booted out immediately. The same action Cisco takes against their own employees for sharing similar concerns.
Together, Open University students made themselves heard, filling the event’s chat and Q&A section with questions about Cisco’s support of Israeli state and military infrastructure. Ironically, this event took place on Webex – Cisco’s secure communication and collaboration platform used by the Israeli military.
Cisco initially tried to bury the first few comments by asking participants to comment where they had joined from. However as questions continued, Cisco resorted to disabling the chat and Q&A altogether, whilst kicking out anybody who asked a question, or even reacted with an emoji they didn’t like. They also cancelled plans to end the session with live questions from the audience.
Seeing Cisco silence Open University students for asking simple and reasonable questions came as no surprise to Cisco employees. It mirrors tactics of suppression deployed by Cisco to silence employees internally. Cisco has gone as far as to place a ban on discussion around the “Middle East conflict” and has fired employees for speaking up. Cisco employees experienced silencing and suppression internally when over 1700+ signed an open letter to their leadership asking for transparency regarding their contracts with Israel. Instead, Cisco aggressively shut down the letter.
Cisco employees feel they have been cheated. They were sold on the facade that Cisco is a company that powers an inclusive future for all which turned out to be a lie. It is no surprise to see students all over now refusing to let the same propaganda be sold to them.
More on the Open University
The Open University’s relationship with Cisco is extensive, primarily through the Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad) of which the Open University is a Cisco Academy Support Centre (ASC). The Open University is one of the largest ASCs globally, helping to connect institutions and educators with Cisco’s training curriculum. In one notable case the Open University helped establish the first Cisco ASC in Northern Ireland. Separately, the OU hosts Cisco at careers events, and mandates compulsory Cisco modules across numerous qualification paths.
The Open University’s complicity and ties goes even further. Recently, the university succumbed to pressure from lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel by committing to remove the term “ancient Palestine” from their future course materials, before backpedaling following public backlash.
Take Action Now
– Use this online form to automatically send an email to the Vice Chancellor of the Open University, defending OU students, and calling on them to cut ties with Cisco!
-Follow Open University Friends of Palestine to keep up with their campaign.
-Visit bridge-2-humanity.org to join them in their demands for Cisco to cut ties with Israel.