A Harvard Law School professor said the federal investigation into Nike’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices — alleged to discriminate against White employees — could have sweeping implications for public and private hiring practices.
“This is a big, big, big deal, because many, many companies were forced under DEI… to create Black quotas and quotas for other groups,” Professor Alan Dershowitz said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.”
Dershowitz said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) investigation into Nike may lead to increased scrutiny of DEI-driven quotas, adding that race-based hiring targets create a “negative impact” on other groups.
“And it looks like, from the Nike investigation, that the EEOC is going to apply this not only backwards but forwards, and it’s going to have a major impact on hiring around the United States in private companies as well as public schools,” Dershowitz said.
He said the probe could impact universities’ hiring and admissions practices, pointing to the “big question” of whether the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action decision — which ruled against the use of race as a factor in college admissions, citing a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause — will be applied “only forward-looking or retroactively, as well.”
In a statement, Nike called the probe “a surprising and unusual escalation,” but said it has cooperated thus far.
Dershowitz said Nike shouldn’t be surprised.
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“They complied with what the [Biden] administration wanted them to do. Now, there’s a new administration, a new sheriff in town, and that new sheriff wants a different approach,” Dershowitz said. “And the American people want that approach, and the Supreme Court wants that approach.”
He praised the return to meritocracy, “where people get hired on the basis of merit, not on the basis of the color of their skin or their gender or their woke policies.”
“We’ll make this a much better country if we really apply meritocracy, and if you apply meritocracy fairly, you’re going to get a lot of diversity as well.”
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom, Brianna Herlihy, Bill Mears, Shannon Bream and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
