Does Nike hire people with felonies?

What Nike has said

Neither Nike nor the Jordan Brand is listed among the Second Chance Business Coalition members on the coalition's homepage, but the coalition said in April 2026 that the Jordan Brand at Nike had joined as a member and that Jordan Brand chairman Larry Miller had become a co-chair. We found no Nike-wide statement on hiring people with records, and no Nike page on background checks or drug testing. Two Los Angeles-area store postings include a notice that Nike will consider applicants with arrest and conviction records under applicable laws; the other 123 postings we read say nothing about records or screening.

• Scbc member brand

  On April 9, 2026 the Second Chance Business Coalition announced that the Jordan Brand at Nike had joined as its 55th member and that Larry Miller, chairman of the Jordan Brand at Nike, was named co-chair. The coalition's full membership list in that release names the Jordan Brand, not Nike. The coalition's homepage member list as we read it on Oct. 31, 2026 does not name Nike or the Jordan Brand.¹

• Local fair-chance notice

  Two store postings we read, Nike East La Community and Nike Santa Clarita, say Nike will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records under applicable laws. They also list duties (working with the public, handling money, following loss-prevention procedures) that Nike believes criminal history may bear on, which could lead to withdrawal of a conditional offer. We saw no such notice on any other posting.²

Does Nike do background checks?

Nike hasn't said publicly whether it runs background checks. We found no Nike careers page or posting that says whether Nike runs a background check. The two Los Angeles-area store postings refer to possible withdrawal of a conditional offer based on criminal history for certain duties, which points to a check after a conditional offer in that area, but that notice is local and we saw it on no other posting. Nike's applicant privacy policy page could not be read in the browser.^2,3,4

• How long a background check takes

Does Nike drug test?

Nike hasn't published a drug testing policy. None of the 125 Nike postings we read mention a drug test.

Rules for specific jobs

• Retail store jobs outside the Los Angeles area

  Store postings we read in Illinois and Wisconsin (Oakbrook and Pleasant Prairie) and other places had no arrest-or-conviction, background check or drug test wording.⁵

• Distribution and manufacturing jobs

  Nike's careers site listed only a handful of distribution (5) and manufacturing (10) openings on Oct. 31, 2026. Among the postings we read, none had screening wording.⁴

Your rights, and how far back a check can go

• Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer must get your written permission before it gets a background report about you from a background screening company.^11,12,13
• Before an employer decides not to hire, keep, or promote you because of something in a background report, it must give you a copy of the report and a document called "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act."^11,12
• You have the right to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information in your background report directly with the company that made it.^11,14
• The FCRA's seven-year limit does not apply to criminal convictions, so under federal law a conviction can show up on a background report no matter how old it is.^15,16
• Under the FCRA, background and credit reports generally cannot include arrest records, civil lawsuits, or civil judgments that are more than seven years old (or older than the statute of limitations, if that is longer).^15,17

Your full background check rights

Before you apply

• You can ask a background screening company for the information it has on you, and the CFPB keeps a list of consumer reporting companies, including employment screening companies, with their contact details.^11,14,18
• According to the Clean Slate Initiative, 14 states and Washington, D.C. have passed Clean Slate laws that meet its criteria for automatically clearing eligible records: Pennsylvania, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware, Virginia, California, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, and Missouri, plus D.C.¹⁹
• The Federal Bonding Program, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, lets states give employers free fidelity bonds that protect them against losses from a newly hired worker's dishonest acts, for job seekers with past justice involvement or in recovery from substance use.^20,21

See whether you can clear your record in your state