Before Andrea Lucas joined the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2020, she worked at a white-shoe law firm where she advised companies on the requirements of federal labor law, including in the growing area of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
At the time, companies were eager to adopt such practices, some of which she considered “extremely legally risky,” Ms. Lucas, now the chair of the commission, said in a recent interview.
The legal landscape has changed. In the second Trump administration, with Ms. Lucas at the helm of the agency charged with enforcing federal labor laws, D.E.I. has become not a goal but a target.
“That was a very bad gamble that many companies took,” Ms. Lucas said.
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, has learned this the hard way. On Wednesday, the commission revealed in a statement and in filings in federal court that it had been investigating Nike’s efforts to increase racial diversity in its employee and leadership ranks. Ms. Lucas has said Nike may have violated civil rights laws by discriminating against white people.
The investigation has set up a showdown between the Trump administration and a prominent company over divergent interpretations of civil rights laws and, more fundamentally, over questions of race and fairness in the workplace.
Nike said it had responded to the commission’s subpoena and requests for information and was surprised by this week’s public escalation. “We will continue our attempt to cooperate with the E.E.O.C.,” Nike said in a statement.
A spokesman for the E.E.O.C. declined to comment on the investigation, beyond the papers filed in federal court.
The investigation, made public through a filing in federal court, was opened by Ms. Lucas herself in May 2024, when she was the lone Republican on the commission. It is unusual for the commission to investigate a company proactively rather than in response to a complaint from an employee. The move puts Ms. Lucas and the E.E.O.C. at the vanguard of the Trump administration’s efforts to quash D.E.I. initiatives and punish organizations that champion them.
In Nike, Ms. Lucas has singled out a globally recognized brand that has for decades been connected with issues of discrimination and social justice. Nike, named after the Greek goddess of victory, has nearly $50 billion in revenue and is a cultural force that courses through sports and style, fusing fashion and streetwear across pop culture.
Nike has a close relationship with the Black community that has, in many ways, driven its brand over the years. Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan shoes have been top sellers for 40 years. Mr. Jordan’s triumphs on the basketball court and his international stardom redefined Nike sneakers as an emblem of aspiration and an American cultural export.
Mr. Jordan has rarely taken public stances on political issues. “Republicans buy sneakers, too,” he once said.
Nike’s younger promoters have been less reticent. The tennis superstar Serena Williams fights for gender pay equity and maternal health matters, and the basketball player Maya Moore leads a justice reform campaign. Nike’s biggest active star, LeBron James, has spoken out against voter suppression and racial inequality.
Nike has leaned into activism over the past decade as well. Mark Parker, who spent 14 years as the company’s chief executive before becoming executive chairman in 2020, addressed employees during times of national distress, such as after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
In 2016, he sent an impassioned letter to employees condemning discrimination and pledging that Nike would become more diverse and inclusive. “I’m proud that Nike takes a stand on issues that impact all of us, our athletes and society as a whole,” Mr. Parker wrote. “We stand against bigotry. We stand for racial justice.”
Nike made its loudest statement two years later when it made Colin Kaepernick, the football star who knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality, the face of an advertising campaign.
“Believe in something,” read the ad, “even if it means sacrificing everything.”
President Trump called it “a terrible message.”
Since Mr. Parker stepped aside, Nike has teamed up with civil rights organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. and the National Urban League. When George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 and protests spread across the country, Nike spoke out.
“We know Black lives matter,” Mr. Parker’s successor, John Donahoe, said while committing $40 million to support the Black community. “The Nike family can always do more but will never stop striving to role model how a diverse company acts.”
Under Mr. Donahoe, Nike embarked on a five-year plan to sculpt a more diverse work force. The company tied some executive compensation to diversity goals and set representation targets in the United States for women and racial and ethnic minorities.
But last year, after Mr. Trump returned to office, Nike decided not to release an annual corporate sustainability report that was expected to provide updates on those diversity initiatives. The company said at the time that it was still committed to those objectives.
The commission’s investigation into Nike’s diversity initiatives is an early test for Elliott Hill, the company’s current chief executive, who came out of retirement to return to Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., 15 months ago. He is trying to pull the business out of a sales slump. Mr. Hill has worked to refocus Nike on sports, speed up product development and get rid of old inventory to make way for new designs.
According to court filings, the commission sent requests to Nike starting in December 2024 seeking information about any race-based “quotas” used to increase hiring diversity and details about the targets of recent layoffs, among other things.
Nike responded with objections and some information, but not all of it, the commission said in a court filing Wednesday.
On Sept. 30, the director of the commission’s St. Louis field office issued a subpoena seeking more detailed information. A week later, Nike filed a petition to change or revoke it. In early January, the commission gave Nike a Jan. 26 deadline.
Nike’s response, according to the commission, did not include full information for some of the requests, including numbers about racial representation or details about how executive compensation was set and vacancies filled.
One practice the commission asked about was a so-called diverse slates hiring protocol that, at Nike, created candidate pools including at least two women and one racial or ethnic minority.
In its January response to the subpoena, Nike said the protocol was “designed to broaden the funnel of qualified candidates” applying to jobs, which the company said was in line with federal guidance “to address substantial disparity” in minority groups or among genders. The company also said no diverse slates practices were currently in effect.
Nike said it planned to send additional responses by the week of Feb. 9.
Jenny R. Yang, a Democrat and former chair of the E.E.O.C., said the subpoena was broad and possibly exceeded the commission’s authority.
“Simply targeting practices that are designed to promote equal employment opportunity, like aspirational goals, raises concerns,” said Ms. Yang, who was on the commission from 2013 to 2018. She added that the investigation appeared to be an attempt to intimidate companies.
“Instead of helping employers comply” with federal civil rights laws, she said, “they just want to investigate them.”
Rebecca Davis O’Brien covers labor and the work force for The Times.
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