\n<\/p>\n
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has launched an investigation into Nike over allegations that the sports giant discriminated against white employees and job applicants.<\/p>\n
The federal agency is demanding that Nike turn over information related to the allegations, including the company\u2019s \u201cDiversity, Equity, and Inclusion-related 2025 Targets and other DEI-related objectives\u201d, it announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Nike, which described the escalation as \u201csurprising and unusual\u201d, insisted that it adheres to \u201call applicable laws\u201d on discrimination. <\/strong>It comes amid a broader crackdown by Donald Trump\u2019s administration on diversity initiatives, which he has repeatedly decried as \u201cradical\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there are compelling indications, including corporate admissions in extensive public materials, that an employer\u2019s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion-related programs may violate federal prohibitions against race discrimination or other forms of unlawful discrimination, the EEOC will take all necessary steps \u2013 including subpoena enforcement actions \u2013 to ensure the opportunity to fully and comprehensively investigate,\u201d said EEOC chair, Andrea Lucas.<\/p>\n The EEOC is responsible for enforcing laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person\u2019s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. The federal agency has the authority to investigate charges against employers who are covered by the law.<\/p>\n Lucas, a Republican, was appointed as acting head of the EEOC by the US president in 2025. Her predecessor during the Biden administration, Charlotte Burrows, was fired shortly after Trump\u2019s return to office last year.<\/p>\n \u201cTitle VII\u2019s prohibition of race-based employment discrimination is colorblind and requires the EEOC to protect employees of all races from unlawful employment practices,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cThanks to President Trump\u2019s commitment to enforcing our nation\u2019s civil rights laws, the EEOC has renewed its focus on evenhanded enforcement of Title VII.\u201d<\/p>\n On his first day in office, Trump signed an order directing federal agencies to terminate all \u201cequity-related\u201d grants or contracts. He also signed a follow-up order requiring federal contractors to certify that they don\u2019t promote DEI. The administration has also targeted universities, urging them to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding.<\/p>\n The information that the EEOC is seeking dates back to 2018, and includes criteria used to select employees for layoffs, information related to the company\u2019s tracking, use of worker race and ethnicity data, and information about \u201c16 programs which allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership, or career development opportunities\u201d.<\/p>\n Lucas has targeted programs related to diversity and gender since being appointed by Trump in 2025, in alignment with the administration\u2019s agenda. In a recent interview with the New York Times, she said that her goal was to undo the consequences of an \u201caggressive focus by D.E.I. activists\u201d under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n In a statement, a Nike spokesperson said: \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have shared thousands of pages of information and detailed written responses to the EEOC\u2019s inquiry and are in the process of providing additional information.\u201d<\/p>\n Nike is a \u201cproud American company\u201d, the spokesperson added. \u201cWe are committed to fair and lawful employment practices and follow all applicable laws, including those that prohibit discrimination. We believe our programs and practices are consistent with those obligations and take these matters seriously. We will continue our attempt to cooperate with the EEOC and will respond to the petition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has launched an investigation into Nike over allegations that the sports giant discriminated against white employees and job applicants. The federal agency is demanding that Nike turn over information related to the allegations, including the company\u2019s \u201cDiversity, Equity, and Inclusion-related 2025 Targets and other DEI-related objectives\u201d, it announced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2239,1038,303,4663,6226,2227,2168,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-43761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-agency","9":"tag-alleged","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-discrimination","12":"tag-investigates","13":"tag-nike","14":"tag-white","15":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}