Cisco Systems scored a 95 on the 2023 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a political stakeholder group. By complying with the HRC’s controversial demands, the company increases the risk of dividing employees, alienating customers and harming shareholders. The company covers transgender-related medical costs for its employees and their children and provides specific sexual orientation and gender identity-based benefits. It also uses sex and gender ideology criteria in employee recruitment, vendor selection, marketing, and philanthropic support. Cisco Systems forces employees to undergo multiple ideological trainings and uses its reputation, corporate funds, and political influence to support controversial sex and gender ideologies, organizations, and legislation Cisco is a founding member of the Partnership for Global LGBTI Equality (PGLE), endorsed the Equality Act, and has donated to the Equality PAC. The company endorsed stricter gun control legislation and matched employee donations to ideological organizations. Cisco is a signatory of the Business Roundtable's 2019 Statement on the Purpose of Corporation, which promotes stakeholder capitalism. The company opposed various state and local legislation intended to protect parental rights, girls’ sports, bathroom facilities, and gendered spaces. Cisco denounced various states’ legislative efforts to protect election integrity and security. The company signed an amicus brief in opposition to the 2016 North Carolina bathroom bill HB2, which required people to use the bathroom of their biological sex. Cisco is a member of the MCCA, indicating its focus on recruiting, retaining, and promoting employees based on race. For these reasons, Cisco Systems receives a High Risk rating.