By Erin Aubry Kaplan
Guest Columnist
Will Nike save civil rights?
Such a question in normal times would be purely rhetorical, maybe the provocative title of a panel discussion about the interplay of capitalism and democracy. But as the Trump administration continues to scrub efforts at racial equity from every corner of American life, the question is becoming literal.
After stripping the federal government of its diversity, equity and inclusion commitments in its first year, the administration is now going after the private sector with the same goal. In February, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission revealed via press release that since last year it’s been investigating Nike over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
The sportswear giant, whose domestic workforce was 9% Black in 2024, beefed up its diverse hiring and promotion policies in 2021 after the murder of George Floyd. While the EEOC is investigating other companies for their diversity practices, including Napa Auto Parts and Dollar General, Nike has the highest profile and greatest cultural resonance.
It’s head-spinning that the investigation is being conducted by an agency created through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to combat racial and other kinds of discrimination in the workplace. In yet another historical and moral inversion of the Trump era, the EEOC is now largely focused on going after discrimination against white people — in Nike’s case, “a pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white employees,” according to the recent EEOC court filing.
Nike said in a statement in February that it’s been cooperating with the agency and that the court motion “feels like a surprising and usual escalation.” In a response filed along with the EEOC court motion, it criticized the subpoena as “broad, ambiguous and unduly burdensome.”
In this Orwellian moment, big business has become a real line of defense in the war on multiethnic America. Some, like Costco, Apple and Coca-Cola, have held the line by keeping DEI policies in place — for now. But that feels like more the exception than the rule.
Target, a retailer favored by Black consumers that also increased commitments to DEI five years ago, unceremoniously canceled those commitments not long after Trump retook office last year. Dozens of other companies, from Meta to McDonald’s, did the same.
But Nike is a different category. In addition to being the biggest athletic shoe and sportswear retailer in the world, Nike owes a debt to Black people that goes deeper than consumerism. A small company started in 1964 by a track coach and a track athlete in Eugene, Oregon, Nike eventually grew into a retail and lifestyle behemoth that built its brand on the careers of Black athletes, starting with basketball icon Michael Jordan and continuing into the 21st century with luminaries like Tiger Woods, Serena Williams and LeBron James. The sneaker craze launched by Air Jordans in 1985 has become a fashion and cultural fixture.
Nor has Nike shied away from racial controversies. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, the Black San Francisco 49ers quarterback, ignited a big one when he protested rampant police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem before games. Conservatives and Republicans — from Tucker Carlson to Donald Trump — were infuriated by what they called unpatriotic behavior that had no place in sports.
Kaepernick was released by the 49ers in 2017 and never played in the NFL again. In 2018, Nike launched an advertising campaign, called Dream Crazy, featuring a somber but determined-looking Kaepernick and the phrase, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
Though it came after the fact, it was a bold corporate move and effective marketing — tacit acknowledgement of the history of Black freedom fighters whose heroic, often lonely struggles against injustice in the face of overwhelming odds have always been the perfect metaphor for a sports ethos of pushing yourself to the limit and beyond. It’s history embedded in “Just Do It,” the Nike slogan that’s become synonymous with American initiative and grit.
But 2016 was a different moment. Trump had just been elected president as a wild-card outsider and faced more pushback, even from within his own party and cabinet. Now, 10 years later and in his second term, he has the full support of the GOP, and all three branches of government — enough mainstream political firepower to retire racially progressive ideals for good.
If Nike does surrender its own commitment to those ideals, it will be surrendering much more than company policy. At a time when symbolism counts for more and more, one company that simply stays the course it’s chosen for itself can counter a hundred others that don’t.
Erin Aubry Kaplan examines the persistent barriers to racial justice and opportunities for progress in an era of receding Black presence in Los Angeles and California for Capital & Main, a nonprofit publication focused on inequality. It is published here with permission.
LIFTOUT
In addition to being the biggest athletic shoe and sportswear retailer in the world, Nike owes a debt to Black people that goes deeper than consumerism.
