When a former Nike employee joined the company a few years ago, she felt like she was in exactly the right place to work on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She believed in the sportswear giant’s DEI leadership and was moved by how John Donahoe, then the CEO, had spoken about corporate responsibility in public appearances.
“I was like, oh my gosh, yes, companies should fight for their values,” recalls the employee, who requested anonymity because she is not authorized to speak on behalf of Nike. “Fantastic. Nike is the place for me.”
But her excitement waned just months into the job. Something had shifted: She couldn’t get access to data easily, and projects got stuck in limbo as she awaited approval from the legal team. She was also instructed not to delete any emails or files.
She didn’t know it, but Nike had become the target of a rather unusual investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (Nike says it’s standard practice during any legal proceeding for the company to advise employees not to delete files or information.) As the federal agency tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace, the EEOC now fields more than 88,000 discrimination claims in a year.
But this wasn’t a routine investigation into worker complaints. The EEOC’s interest in Nike had been initiated by a commissioner, Andrea Lucas, rather than a specific claim of discrimination from an employee. Lucas—who Trump later appointed as chair of the EEOC—brought the charge in response to Nike’s DEI programs, alleging that the company has discriminated against white employees and job applicants by pursuing its diversity goals, which included tying some compensation to DEI metrics and providing career advancement opportunities for under-represented employees.
Stamping out DEI
Since becoming chair of the agency in early 2025, Lucas has made her intentions clear, embracing an agenda in line with Trump’s executive orders that prioritizes “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination.” In a New York Times report this week, current and former EEOC employees claimed that the agency was relentlessly pursuing charges of discrimination against white men.
The investigation into Nike is a crucial flashpoint in the anti-DEI movement—one that, depending on the outcome, could have serious consequences for DEI programs across corporate America. At a time when employers across the U.S. have sought to distance themselves from DEI efforts that could prove legally risky, Nike’s public commitments to diversity work appear to be the very reason Lucas has taken aim at the company.
“I thought: If I can work in the DEI team at a company like Nike—which has so much influence over the world—what could the impact be?” says the former Nike employee. “And I think similarly, Andrea Lucas was like, if I can get Nike—one of the biggest, most influential companies in the world—to stop doing DEI, then all of the other dominoes will fall.”
In speaking with former Nike employees as well as EEOC officials, diversity experts, and shareholder activists, a portrait emerges of how Nike became the Trump administration’s first DEI domino, what’s happening quietly as the current EEOC pursues its agenda that we aren’t seeing, and the significant ripple effects for corporate America if the company fights this action or folds.
Nike’s record on DEI
Nike’s reputation as a progressive employer dates back decades, well before the company made Colin Kaepernick the face of a high-profile ad campaign. Back in 2002, Nike was one of just 13 employers to receive a top score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, an annual benchmarking survey that measures workplace inclusion. (In response to conservative backlash over the last few years, many companies have now stopped participating in the ranking altogether. Nike continues to participate.)
Before the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ+ workers against discrimination, Nike was a vocal supporter of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which aimed to ban discrimination against gay workers; a leader on Nike’s diversity and inclusion team even testified before the Senate in 2009, making the business case for passing the bill.
By 2018, however, Nike was contending with a widely publicized gender discrimination lawsuit, amid myriad allegations of sexism and harassment within the company. (The lawsuit has yet to be resolved, despite progress on a tentative settlement last year.) Nike ousted several male employees when the issues came to light, and following an internal pay equity audit, the company awarded raises to over 7,000 employees.
A few years later, when many companies took pains to promote racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, Nike made bold commitments of its own: The company pledged to increase the number of women in leadership roles and boost the share of racial and ethnic minorities to 35% across its workforce; Nike also tied executive compensation to making progress on its DEI commitments.
Nike’s senior leadership also participated in an intensive six-week certificate program in 2020, spearheaded by diversity consultant and Northwestern University professor Alvin Tillery. His team trained 900 global vice presidents at Nike through a combination of live instruction and asynchronous video content. As for the scope of the program, Tillery described it as “one of the most significant corporate investments in their human capital” that he has seen across the landscape of DEI trainings.
Still, as is often the case with diversity work, Nike needed a nudge to be more transparent about its internal progress on DEI. In 2021, the shareholder advocacy nonprofit As you Sow filed a proposal urging Nike to share data on its progress around diversity and inclusion.
“Since 2019, we’ve been tracking companies’ disclosure of workforce demographics, including hiring, retention, and promotion rates,” says Meredith Benton, the workplace equity program manager at As You Sow. “At that time, Nike was a large employer not sharing that data set, where there was a brand risk associated with any claims of an equitable workplace.”
The following year, after As You Sow sought to file another shareholder resolution, Nike agreed to release metrics on recruitment and promotion rates for diverse employees by 2024. (At the time of writing, however, Nike does not seem to have shared that information.) The company also publicly posted its EEO-1 form for the first time, which captures workforce demographic data and must be submitted to the EEOC annually by all private sector employers with more than 100 employees.
A “risk averse” internal culture
The former employee who worked on DEI at Nike described the company as “risk averse” and apprehensive about collecting data even prior to the EEOC investigation. “Access to data was a struggle,” she says. “They said: Well, if we uncover inequity, then we make ourselves liable. If people find out that we knew that there were inequities and we didn’t do anything about it, then they could sue us.”
She claimed that Nike seemed more interested in big, showy moments that promoted inclusivity, like the company’s Juneteenth celebration. She did feel that many employees and even senior leaders were committed to DEI—but actually getting the work done proved more challenging, in part because of the company culture. “Unfortunately, rigorous DEI work makes people feel uncomfortable,” she says. Since 2020, there has been quite a bit of turnover across Nike’s DEI team, including a quick succession of five chief diversity officers. The company also opted not to publish a corporate sustainability report last year sharing its progress on DEI.
When Tillery conducted the leadership training with Nike, he found that—like many companies of its stature—the top leaders were largely male and white, with some exceptions. “I didn’t look at them and say, ‘oh my god, Nike is winning on the DEI front,’” he recounts. “I’ve worked with companies where their middle and upper management seemed more diverse.” Tillery points to companies like McDonald’s or even Walmart, which he argues have more “visible diversity” in the C-suite.
But he also believed Nike’s leadership demonstrated a genuine desire to “be good inclusive leaders,” despite the company’s shortcomings. “The bottom line on all of these trainings is that it’s good for business,” Tillery says. “It reduces complaints from women and people of color. It makes people across the board feel valued . . . You’re going to tell companies who’ve been sued multiple times for racial and gender discrimination that they shouldn’t try to prevent that?”
Implications for Nike—and corporate DEI
As the EEOC investigation has unfolded over the last two years, Nike claims to have cooperated with the agency while also pushing back on the full scope of its requests, arguing they are burdensome. “We have had extensive, good-faith participation in an EEOC inquiry into our personnel practices, programs, and decisions and have had ongoing efforts to provide information and engage constructively with the agency,” a Nike spokesperson said in a statement. “To date, we have shared thousands of pages of information and detailed written responses to the EEOC’s inquiry and are continuing our attempt to cooperate.” (Nike had also previously told Fast Company that the subpoena enforcement action felt like a “surprising and unusual escalation.”)
“We are committed to fair and lawful employment practices and follow all applicable laws, including those that prohibit discrimination,” the statement continued. “We believe our programs and practices are consistent with those obligations and take these matters seriously.”
Former EEOC officials say the specifics of the investigation are not exactly out of the ordinary, at least so far—not even the lengthy timeline. What is atypical, however, is that this investigation was thrust into the public sphere before there was any resolution. EEOC investigations are supposed to remain private until they come to an end; if a case is not dismissed and the agency finds reasonable cause, the next step is a conciliation process that often results in a settlement. If both parties cannot come to an agreement, the EEOC may bring a lawsuit, though that is considered a last resort.
An impasse
In the case of Nike, the EEOC chose to enforce a subpoena in court, bringing the investigation into the public record. The EEOC does rely on subpoenas to ensure employers comply with the agency’s requests for information—but enforcing them in court is hardly standard practice.
“I would say that it’s clear that the EEOC and Nike, through their counsel, have reached an impasse, and that’s why this has gotten filed in court,” says Karla Gilbride, a former general counsel for the EEOC who was fired by Trump last year. “The only situation where something would go to the court for enforcement is when the employer doesn’t comply with that subpoena, or in the commission’s view, isn’t forthcoming enough . . . And in my experience, that is pretty unusual.”
Chai Feldblum—a former EEOC commissioner and president of EEO Leaders, a group of former senior officials who worked at the EEOC and Department of Labor under previous administrations—says the investigation is far from over. When it does eventually come to a resolution, it could involve a lawsuit if the EEOC wants to make an example of Nike. But regardless of the outcome, Feldblum argues, the damage is already done: The EEOC has drawn plenty of attention to this case.
“This is an EEOC that wants to have a broad frontal attack on ill-defined DEI efforts,” she says. “They have already achieved that goal with their public subpoena against Nike, regardless of how this particular case ends up playing out.”
Even if the two parties come to an agreement and avoid litigation, the EEOC could exert its influence to broadcast the details of the settlement and effectively send a message to other employers. She points to recent DEI-related settlements with Columbia University and a Planned Parenthood affiliate, both of which were made public. (The investigation into Columbia was especially notable because it was prompted by a commissioner’s charge, and the university agreed to pay a whopping $21 million—the largest public settlement with the EEOC in nearly 20 years.)
The stakes for Nike
Whatever the outcome, there’s a lot at stake for Nike, whether or not the EEOC finds evidence of anti-white discrimination. It certainly doesn’t help that Nike is in the midst of a sweeping overhaul to turn around the business—and progress has been slow at best. (Just this month, Nike announced its second round of layoffs this year, impacting 1,400 jobs largely in the tech department.)
“The brand of Nike is built on the bodies of Black athletes,” Tillery says. “So of course [the Trump administration] wants to take it down for the cultural cachet. I think they don’t expect to necessarily win in court, but they expect the corporate counsel to either be afraid or to extract concessions from Nike—and then they can go to all the other companies they want to threaten and get deals.”
Through his consulting firm, 2040 Strategy Group, Tillery has run the numbers for other companies on how caving to anti-DEI pressure could potentially harm their brand. The message was clear: Brand identity and customer loyalty would drop precipitously. Target experienced this firsthand after dialing back its DEI policies last year: The decision prompted a boycott and widespread outrage from the Black community, and Target’s faltering sales dipped even further; the company’s stock dropped by over 30%, and former CEO Brian Cornell eventually stepped down. That’s why, in the face of legal threats from the Trump administration and anti-DEI pressure from conservative activists, many companies split the difference by maintaining their DEI efforts under another name (cue the shift to “belonging” and “inclusion” programs at companies like Disney).
Nike is no stranger to consumer outrage, having experienced it firsthand after its polarizing campaign featuring Kaepernick. But the good will the company garnered by taking a stand on racial equality also means there’s more to lose. “I hope that they fight it out for the next two years,” Tillery says of Nike. “If [this case] gets up to the Supreme Court, it’s a wild card. But if I talked to [CEO] Elliot Hill, I’d say the harm to the brand will be unfathomable if they fold.”
The cost of resistance
Even if the company chooses to fight this investigation, Nike will likely be forced to make some concessions and changes to its DEI programs, much like its peers in the corporate world. The publicity around Nike’s case could set the stage for similar inquiries into other formidable employers, or the threat of a potential investigation could scare some companies into backing away from DEI more than they already have.
Just this month, IBM forked over $17 million to settle a case brought by the Justice Department, as part of an initiative targeting DEI programs across federal contractors. The government claimed that the company’s DEI programs—which allegedly considered demographic background as part of employment decisions—were unlawful. (IBM already reportedly made changes to some DEI programs last year or eliminated them outright.)
“Fighting against the government requires a lot of money,” says DEI practitioner Evelyn Carter, who recently authored the book Was That Racist? How to Detect, Interrupt, and Unlearn Bias in Everyday Life. “It requires a lot of time [and] expertise, and I have spoken with many leaders who said to me—when they were changing the names of their DEI teams and the like—that they knew they weren’t doing anything wrong. But they also knew the risk of having a lawsuit brought against them, even if they could fight it and win, would financially tank the company in such a way that it was easier to just fly under the radar. And that killing effect is, I think, what Lucas was going after.”
In fact, there could already be similar investigations underway that have remained private thus far—or may never become public if companies capitulate to the agency’s demands. One former EEOC official who asked to remain anonymous told Fast Company that the agency is reportedly pursuing “weak charges” alleging anti-white discrimination and resorting to subpoena actions to obtain more information from employers, according to accounts from corporate counsel. Many employers are reportedly scared of getting negative publicity and doing their best to comply with the EEOC’s requests.
In the meantime, the EEOC is diverting precious resources away from its core mission of finding justice for vulnerable employees who experience workplace discrimination.
“For the EEOC to prioritize attacking [DEI] efforts—rather than addressing the overwhelming majority of charges alleging what we know is discrimination—is an irresponsible use of limited resources,” Feldblum says. “We know that there has to be a negative impact on their ability to do their job in these other areas. We want an EEOC that addresses the pressing problems that our civil rights laws were designed to solve—not an agency that engages in fishing expeditions to identify a few favorite victims of supposed discrimination. That’s what is happening now, and that’s a sad moment for our country.”
A glimmer of hope
Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope in how certain companies have navigated the surge in anti-DEI sentiment over the last few years. Some major companies have stayed the course on DEI, even if they are no longer using that exact language. In recent years, shareholder activists have proposed anti-DEI resolutions that found virtually no traction: According to As You Sow, 24 companies faced anti-DEI proposals last year—and 99% of shareholders voted to support management and keep DEI programs intact. “Companies are talking to us, saying explicitly that they’re worried about spurious lawsuits based on the fact that they have these programs,” Benton says. “But they know that they have to protect these programs because the programs are important to them and to how they run their business.”
There are, of course, a few prominent companies that have held their ground in response to anti-DEI attacks, despite the attendant concerns. “We know the famous examples of companies that stood firm, Apple and Costco, in large part because shareholders didn’t want to get rid of the programs,” Tillery says. “They just said no, and there’s been no real consequences to that.” In response to the shareholder vote, Trump called DEI a “hoax” and urged Apple to “get rid of DEI rules,” to no avail. And Costco stood firm against a letter from 19 Republican attorneys general pressuring the company to dispense with its DEI policies.
Nike could follow in their footsteps, and then some—if its leadership dares to see this investigation through to the end. “They’re the ones holding the ball around equity and inclusion,” Benton says. “This is the biggest game Nike is ever going to play when it comes to social issues.”
