Civil rights agency moves to drop subpoena action against Nike in DEI-related investigation

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal civil rights agency is dropping a subpoena enforcement action against Nike, saying the company has complied with requests for information as part of an investigation into the sportswear giant’s diversity and inclusion policies.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the motion to dismiss in Missouri federal court Wednesday, seven months after asking the court to order Nike to fully comply with the subpoena. In its court filing, the EEOC said that between March and August, Nike had provided “information and documents responsive to the subpoena,” leaving “no remaining controversy” for the court to resolve.

An EEOC spokesperson said the agency is “pleased the company complied without a court order after the filing of our subpoena enforcement action,” but declined to provide more details. Nike declined to comment.

Nike is one of the highest companies targeted by EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas’ campaign against corporate diversity and inclusion policies, which the Trump administration claims discriminate against white men and others. The EEOC has also filed a lawsuit against The New York Times alleging that the news organization discriminated against a white editor who was rejected for a role that went to a multiracial woman. In December, Lucas posted a social media call-out urging white men to file complaints if they have experienced discrimination based on race or sex.

The investigation against Nike, however, did not stem from a worker charge but from a complaint that Lucas filed herself in May 2024, alleging that the company was discriminating against white employees. Her charge cited Nike’s publicly shared information about mentorship and other programs designed to foster diversity, data showing it had increased the number of minorities in its leadership ranks and its publicly stated goal of achieving 35% representation of racial and ethnic minorities in its corporate workforce by 2025.

The subpoena enforcement action against Nike offered a glimpse into an EEOC investigation into a charge, a process that normally remains confidential unless it results in fines, settlements, legal action or other public actions.

The EEOC has sought data on Nike’s employment decisions dating back years, including its criteria for selecting employees for layoffs, how it tracks and uses worker race and ethnicity data, and information about programs that allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership or career development opportunities, according to court documents.

It was unclear if Nike had provided all of the information the EEOC had demanded.

In February, the company called the court action a “surprising and unusual escalation,” saying it had handed over thousands of pages of information to the EEOC and was in the process of sharing more. In court filings, Nike called many of the requests overly broad and burdensome, saying they amounted to a “fishing expedition” for “information about every employment decision in the “idle hope that evidence of wrongdoing might be uncovered for one of them.”