Nike allows purchasers to customize their Air Jordans, but reserves the right to control what ideas, thoughts and preferences you proclaim on your shoes.
Nabeel Kaukab, self-described as “an All American kid with an unusual name,” was browsing the online NikeiD store where customers build and buy custom footwear, and discovered Nike’s lack of support for the concept of free speech when he explored the customization features, one of which includes the ability to place up to six letters on the athletic shoes. When he entered “Islam” and “Muslim,” he was unformed that these words do not fit within the Nike guidelines.
Really? Nike’s guidelines specifically exclude “profanity,” “inappropriate slang,” “insulting or discriminatory content,” “content construed to incite violence,” “material that Nike wishes not to place on products” and anything that “violates another party’s trademark or intellectual property rights.”
Kaukab wrote the company, saying in part,
As far as I (or any rational person) can assume, neither word is profanity, slang (appropriate or inappropriate), insulting or discriminatory (more than a billion people globally find identity in being called Muslims). Considering there is no trademark or [intellectual property] around just the word Islam or Muslim, by process of elimination that leaves your customers to assume only the following: Either you believe the word Islam or Muslim incites violence or they are words that Nike doesn’t want to place on its products?
The words do not incite violence, and even if they did, no company should aid and abet the efforts and objectives of someone who would pursue violence against someone who had a religious reference on their sneakers. As for words that Nike doesn’t want to place on its products, prohibiting any words outside the reasonable boundaries of its guidelines is an abuse of its power, and an attack on American principles. Corporations are too ubiquitous and influential in our lives to use their power to try to constrain expression. Yes, they have a right to do it, and we have an obligation to tell the company to stop undermining free speech. If it’s “Islam” today, it could be GOP, Bernie, USA, CHOICE, LIFE, BLM, Reagan or TRUTH tomorrow.
To be ethical, companies need to have a compelling, rational reason to refuse to let the owner of its shoes choose what they want to communicate with their feet as well as their mouths, otherwise what those private censors are doing is strangling free thought and expression, and contributing to an already dangerous trend. There is no rational reason prohibit words relating to one religion and not others. In fact, there is no rational reason to to prohibit words relating to religion.
Imposing the corporate view regarding what words and thoughts are “appropriate” on citizen customers is not rational. It is also not American.
Ethics Alarms 
They will probably elect to remove the option to customize, if it means something with negative connotations is stitched alongside “Nike.”
Point: who is to say what has “negative connotations” on MY SHOES? What if the wearer has negative connotations?
Nike was asking for trouble with this idea. This is not a time in history to try to use free speech as a marketing tool. If you don’t intend to actually allow free speech it’s nuts to offer it. Some SJW will always make your life miserable when free speech is offered. This time Nike did it to themselves preemptively.
This sounds like a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t issue for Nike. From the same article:
“Nike didn’t respond to a request for comment from HuffPost explaining the decision, but it may have something to do with the reaction of the global Muslim community to a line of basketball shoes it manufactured in 1997, in which a stylized set of flames that read “Air” in English also (unintentionally) resembled the word “Allah” in Arabic. The fiasco resolved itself only after Nike withdrew 38,000 pairs of shoes worldwide, issued a formal apology and paid for a playground at an Islamic elementary school in the U.S.”
But that situation is completely different. That’s a common international problem faced by many other corporations. This is about words that are unequivocally English. they aren’t damned if they make clear, sensible guidelines, and they aren’t damned if they don’t allow customizing.
Jack, I think you are wrong here.The speech at issue here is not the consumer’s speech but Nike’s. Nike should free to set whatever rules they want to when it is their product. No one has to buy them. The problem when you start to treat large corporations like say the government, which is supposed to be constitutionally restricted is that there is no clean line to stop. You can pick an arbitrary one, but that just doesn’t make sense.
Should the same standards be applied to a small company, who say doesn’t want to have certain speech (like approval of things they personally disagree with) associated with their product (bakers in Oregon being an example)? If so, how about to an independent contractor, who decides not to work for a company that they think is harming the environment, say a coal company. Is there any real difference then between prohibiting individuals from making choices about what companies they work for as employees? Finally, why should the individual get to make choices about what occupation to pursue based on their own preferences (say, deciding to become a priest).
If free speech isn’t protected when it is offensive, when you disagree with it, it will soon cease to be free. The current attacks are aimed at imposing rules on corporations, but they are quickly sliding down towards individuals.
I think all you are saying is that the speech they chose was offensive and that it was unethical because they did not abide by their own guidelines. I will say that there are certainly people that would find the association of Islam with Nike offensive enough to stop buying Nike’s shoes, which is what Nike had in mind with their standards. I think they are well within their bounds of exercising their freedom of speech in setting such standards. If you don’t buy their shoes, you let them know that their policy has a cost, which is fine. Going further hurts us all.
Nope. Nobody is disputing that they have the RIGHT. I did not discuss the right of free speech, which only applied to government restrictions. I an talking about the principle of free speech, a foundation of American society and culture, without which the right isn’t much good if corporations and private businesses use their power to restrict the freedom.
A restaurant can insist that nobody talk politics as they eat. That violates the principle, and harms the right. Same here. Abuse of power—legal, but wrong. That’s why I said that what Nike is doing is un-American, and therefore unethical for a member of US society.
You will not find the word “right” anywhere in the post. You will find this:
To be ethical, companies need to have a compelling, rational reason to refuse to let the owner of its shoes choose what they want to communicate with their feet as well as their mouths, otherwise what those private censors are doing is strangling free thought and expression, and contributing to an already dangerous trend.
That trend, by the way, is people being intimidated and obstructed from expressing their opinions and positions and beliefs in public.
Clear now?
I have a business, that is unfortunately closing down right now, but I certainly restricted freedom of speech and expression. I had a dress code. I had rules about office decorations, and an express policy about any non-work expressions that would reflect badly on the firm, to the extent they were associated with the firm. I think all of these were reasonable. I think Nike’s policies, and their application, were reasonable and not un-American or unethical.
Nike’s compelling rational reason is that a significant number of its customers would have found these expressions offensive and many would have associated this expression with Nike and this would have hurt Nike’s business.
The current trend is to treat religious expression as equivalent to choosing a color of shirt. It is a matter of taste and preference, but not something that really affects someone else. The problem is that religions are worldviews that have substantive content and implications. Personally, I think there should be no distinction between how we treat religious worldviews and political or social worldviews. Green can be every bit as much of a religion as Catholicism. Also, like any philosophy, what people mean by it varies widely. Having said that, pretending that all philosophy’s or religions will be in line with you ideas of American culture seems dangerous. I think the rule has to be the same as for criminals. We let people behave as they will, but set limits and if they violate them we prosecute them and lock them up or otherwise take action to protect the rest of us. I admit it is much more complicated with religions and worldviews. For some, the violence, and no one can deny it, that has been associated with Islam taints the whole religion. Yes, there are those who are adherents who are not violent. I don’t think the answer is simple there, but I will not condemn anyone (like those who would not buy NIke shoes if they thought NIke was associated with Islam) who takes that stance as unethical. I know those who feel that way and most of them would treat any individual with compassion and tolerance, but do not want that culture invading ours. I will also not condemn Nike for recognizing this reality. To ask them to choose between not damaging their reputation and sales and not offering some personalization seems unreasonable.
Why? If they will not allow purchasers to express their own beliefs and preferences, but insist on controlling their freedom of expression, then Nike is not really allowing customization. They should just list a group of six letter expressions that Nike deems “acceptable,” and not lie about it being the customer’s free choice. Saying “Islam” offends Nike is like saying “freedom” or “GOP” does. The young man is right.
“If it’s “Islam” today, it could be GOP, Bernie, USA, CHOICE, LIFE, BLM, Reagan or TRUTH tomorrow.
Has anyone tested the website to see what else may be banned?
This infraction is the sibling of the infraction by various airlines that block certain websites…
I see it as a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation as well – just for different reasons. In many (if not all) cultures where Islam is the dominant cultural force, feet and shoes have a connotation of insult. Showing someone the bottom of your foot is an insult and striking someone with your shoe is a grave insult. Does anyone remember the Bush shoe throwing incident from back in 2008? That’s why it was a big deal in the Arab world.
Putting Islam or Muslim on a shoe? I don’t see any way that couldn’t easily be interpreted as an insult by those cultures.