Federal investigators opened a new window into how workplace diversity programs are being reviewed for potential race discrimination, saying they are probing Nike’s practices for allegations that target white employees. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it is seeking information as part of an investigation tied to what the agency described as “DEI-related” discrimination through the company’s diversity policies.
According to the EEOC, the agency filed a motion in Missouri federal court seeking that Nike fully comply with a subpoena. The request, as described in court filings, is directed at several areas of Nike’s employment decision-making and related data handling, including how the company selects employees for layoffs and how it tracks and uses information about workers’ race and ethnicity.
The EEOC is also asking for information about programs it described in the court documents as providing race-restricted mentoring, leadership opportunities or career development opportunities. The agency’s request includes the materials it said are needed to determine whether the company’s diversity-related efforts comply with federal limits on race-based employment decisions.
Nike said in a statement that it has worked to cooperate with the EEOC and that the subpoena “feels like a surprising and unusual escalation.” The company said it has shared “thousands of pages of information” and provided written responses, and that it is in the process of providing additional information.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has made similar efforts a priority, the AP reported, and has criticized some diversity and inclusion approaches as potentially discriminatory. The EEOC’s Nike investigation arrives as Lucas has also pursued cases that seek to test whether certain DEI-related programs run into legal limits under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars employers from using race as a criteria for hiring or other employment decisions.
The AP reported that Lucas’s probe of Nike does not stem from a worker complaint, according to the court documents. Instead, the agency said Lucas filed her own complaint in May 2024 using a commissioner’s charge, a tool described as less commonly used, after a conservative legal group sent the EEOC a letter urging that charge.
The court filings described Lucas’s charge as based in part on Nike’s public information about its diversity commitments, including a goal announced in 2021 to achieve 35% representation of racial and ethnic minorities in its corporate workforce by 2025. The AP noted that many companies made similar commitments after 2020 protests following the killing of George Floyd, often describing those pledges as goals rather than quotas and saying they used measures like widening recruitment and removing bias in hiring.
The EEOC said it will take steps to investigate when it finds compelling indications that an employer’s DEI-related programs may violate prohibitions on race discrimination or other forms of unlawful discrimination. For now, Nike remains in the middle of an agency subpoena process that seeks detailed documentation, while the company says it believes its programs are consistent with the law.