(José Niño, Headline USA) The nation’s top workplace discrimination watchdog made Nike its biggest corporate target yet in the Trump administration’s sweeping campaign against corporate diversity programs, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced last Wednesday that it opened an investigation into whether Nike discriminated against white workers in hiring decisions, layoffs, and workforce practices stretching back to 2018. The agency filed a subpoena enforcement action against the sportswear giant in a federal Missouri court.
Nike denied violating any anti-discrimination laws and pushed back sharply against the move.
“This feels like a surprising and unusual escalation,” a company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, adding that Nike had been cooperating with the inquiry. “We have shared thousands of pages of information and detailed written responses to the EEOC’s inquiry and are in the process of providing additional information.”
The EEOC’s Republican chair, Andrea Lucas, has been among the most aggressive supporters of President Trump’s push against what the White House calls illegal DEI programs. Last year, Lucas launched investigations into the diversity programs of 20 law firms and recently took to social media urging white men to report any harm they suffered from corporate diversity efforts, per a report by the Journal. Many employers had expanded those efforts following George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
Investigators are examining whether Nike’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs produced what the EEOC describes as a pattern of disparate treatment against white employees. The probe examines how Nike selects workers for layoffs, how it tracks racial and ethnic data, and whether 16 programs allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring and career development opportunities.
The investigation had remained confidential until last Wednesday. Labor and employment attorney Christopher DeGroff, who tracks the EEOC closely, told the Wall Street Journal that making the subpoena public was itself unusual. “That’s usually an administrative matter related to a confidential process,” he said. “At the investigative stage, no finding has been made.”
America First Legal, a conservative nonprofit co-founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, filed one of the complaints against Nike that triggered the investigation, according to the WSJ. The group alleged Nike used numerical quotas in hiring, training, and promotion that excluded white, straight men. America First Legal filed similar complaints against Disney, Starbucks, and Salesforce.
Nike had already been navigating discrimination lawsuits from former employees in 2018 and 2019 alleging racial and gender-based bias when the company launched its diversity push. Following George Floyd’s death, Nike hired a new chief diversity officer and pledged $40 million over four years to support social justice organizations.
The broader corporate retreat from diversity commitments accelerated after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in higher education admissions in 2023, prompting companies to scale back racial justice programs as demand for chief diversity officers collapsed across corporate America.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
