A federal jury in Portland found that Nike violated the Equal Pay Act and Oregon law by paying former engineer Heather Hender less than male colleagues and promoting her more slowly because of her gender, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Jurors ordered Nike to pay Hender $19,739.52 in back pay and at least $7.5 million in punitive damages, local news station KGW reported, a figure that exceeds the $2 million her attorneys had requested.
Hender’s case traces back to 2018, when she and three other employees sued Nike alleging systemic sex discrimination in pay and promotions, OPB reported. That lawsuit followed a New York Times investigation built partly on an internal survey known as Project Starfish, which described a male-dominated culture at Nike’s Beaverton headquarters. Several of the original plaintiffs’ claims were resolved through settlement or other proceedings over the years, per OPB. Hender’s case reached trial as a single-plaintiff suit in July 2026 after six days of testimony and just over a day of jury deliberation, according to reports.
Labor economist David Neumark testified for Hender’s legal team that his analysis of Nike’s employment data showed an average gender pay gap of more than $11,000 per employee per year during the relevant period, according to news reports on the trial. Nike disputed his methodology, and Hender’s former managers testified that her pay and promotion decisions reflected performance...
Executive Summary What’s new: The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of an outsider’s qui tam action under the False Claims Act, outlining a potential path to dismissal where a relator lacks ins...