{"id":449413,"date":"2026-02-04T23:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T23:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/449413\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T23:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T23:38:17","slug":"federal-agency-probes-nike-over-alleged-discrimination-against-white-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/449413\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal agency probes Nike over alleged discrimination against White employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is probing Nike in response to unspecified allegations<\/a> that the company discriminates against White employees, the agency said Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n The agency said it is investigating potential discrimination against White workers that may have occurred in part due to \u201cNIKE\u2019s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion-related 2025 Targets and other DEI-related objectives.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The subpoena enforcement action is another sign of a shift in views on discrimination under the Trump administration, which has sought to end diversity initiatives and instead examine whether such programs unfairly target White people.\n <\/p>\n

\n \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 EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the Wednesday filing, the EEOC did not identify individual victims. Rather, the filing refers to \u201call White employees, former employees, prospective employees, and current and prospective training program applicants and participants who have been, continue to be, or may be in the future adversely affected by the [alleged] unlawful employment practices.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Nike called Wednesday\u2019s actions \u201ca surprising and unusual escalation\u201d in an emailed statement and said it has already \u201cshared thousands of pages of information.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe are committed to fair and lawful employment practices and follow all applicable laws, including those that prohibit discrimination,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe 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\n <\/p>\n

\n Lucas first issued a discrimination charge against Nike in 2024, when she was a commissioner, according to the filing. Since becoming chair, she has shifted the priorities of the EEOC to address discrimination against White people. In an infamous December social media post, Lucas commissioned potential victims of \u201cDEI-related discrimination.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAre you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws,\u201d she said in the X post<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n The EEOC said it is requesting information from Nike going back to 2018 over \u201crace-based workforce representation quotas\u201d and allegedly deciding layoffs and promotions at least in part due to race. The agency also asked for information about 16 mentoring and career development programs that were \u201crace restricted.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The wide-ranging probe is a signal that no employer, no matter how prominent, is free from scrutiny over the Trump administration\u2019s anti-DEI goals, said Sam Mitchell, a Chicago-based lawyer who argues employment disputes cases.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNike is being made an example of,\u201d Mitchell told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The EEOC said the agency filed the enforcement action after Nike failed to voluntarily provide all the information required by the subpoena.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a 2025 legal filing, attorneys representing Nike argued the subpoena should be revoked \u201cbecause its itemized requests are unduly burdensome, vague, overbroad, disproportionate to the needs of the investigation, seek irrelevant and time-barred information, and constitute an impermissible fishing expedition.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is probing Nike in response to unspecified allegations that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-449413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}