Nike staff surveys about sexual harassment and discrimination were produced after damning testimony by former company executive Melanie Strong, and a court order, with some of the most shocking allegations of misbehavior including ‘sloppy drunks’ hitting on staffers and ‘oral sex in the campus gym‘, according to OregonLive.
The so-called ‘Starfish’ surveys were internally conducted by female employees who aired their experiences with discrimination and sexual harassment – after many believed that their previous complaints were not being taken seriously by management.
The anonymous surveys were recorded in 2018. The company initially insisted that only about 30 employees had filled out the survey. Monique Matheson, a Nike HR executive, and Nicole Hubbard Graham, Nike’s chief marketing officer, were two executives who maintained they received ‘approximately 30-ish’ in her 2024 deposition testimony.
However in March 2024, former executive Melanie Strong, who was one of the last people to handle the surveys, said they were instead 300 surveys submitted in a subpoena-forced testimony.
‘There were exponentially more surveys and there were exponentially more stories and conversations that didn’t end up on paper,’ a Starfish organizer confirmed to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
After Strong’s deposition in 2024, plaintiffs’ lawyers were able to secure a new court order and the company ended up turning over another 15 Starfish surveys – conceding that it had missed a few.
The local publication also claims that the billion-dollar corporation has been attempting to block its reporting o 31 of the surveys.
‘We’re spending millions of dollars to protect people who behaved badly,’ a Nike employee raged after news of Strong’s deposition emerged.
Newly unearthed documents have revealed that former Nike executives allegedly attempted to hide complaints of sexual harassment from female staffers at their Oregon headquarters
In the surveys, respondents revealed that they were allegedly told by male coworkers to ‘dress sexier’ and ‘show some skin’ at the office.
One even shockingly revealed that she allegedly caught a male executive receiving oral sex from a lower-ranking female in the campus gym.
Another claimed that ‘sloppy drunk’ men would put their arms around female coworkers during work travel while others would ask subordinates to ‘work dinners’ in hopes of sleeping with them.
A fifth respondent noted that a male manager once allegedly said, ‘No one gives a fuck about female empowerment’, according to Business Insider.
In March 2024, former executive Melanie Strong, who was one of the last people to handle the surveys, said there may have instead been 300 surveys submitted in an subpoena-forced testimony
At an October hearing, plaintiffs’ lawyers read aloud an email with the subject line ‘Starfish’ that was not provided in the initial discovery and argued it should have been
A Nike lawyer addressed the recent discovery of more Starfish surveys at a September hearing.
‘At some point, a collection of (Starfish surveys), somewhere around the 30 or so that were turned over, that was the universe of which we, the company, were aware,’ the lawyer said.
Evidence obtained by the OregonLive suggests that senior management – including former CEO Mark Parker – did not hand over all of the ‘Starfish’ surveys to court. Nike insisted that only around 30 employees had filled out the survey – reportedly in attempts to minimize the backlash and damage they were facing
In March 2024, former executive Melanie Strong, who was one of the last people to handle the surveys, said they were instead 300 surveys submitted in an subpoena forced testimony
At an October hearing, plaintiffs’ lawyers read aloud an email with the subject line ‘Starfish’ that was not provided in the initial discovery and argued it should have been
‘So we had the hardcopy universe,’ he added. ‘We went back under Magistrate Judge Russo’s most recent order, searched via email for some additional questionnaires, and (produced) the only ones we were able to come up with.’
At an October hearing, plaintiffs’ lawyers read aloud an email with the subject line ‘Starfish’ that was not provided in the initial discovery and argued it should have been.
When asked by District Judge Amy Baggio, who’s now overseeing the lawsuit, why Nike hadn’t provided the document, a lawyer said the company was only ordered to produce surveys.
But Baggio disagreed, noting the order went ‘beyond the questionnaires,’ and included ‘all communications and documents related to Starfish not already produced by Nike.’
‘That seems a lot more broad than what you described a moment ago,’ Baggio told the Nike lawyer.
The next trial for the last remaining four plaintiffs is scheduled for March 2025.
