Equally predictable were the laudatory reactions from the beneficiary of Nike’s largesse: the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which includes 179 universities, human-rights groups, consumer organizations, and diverse companies.²⁵⁴ Executive Director Auret van Heerden understood the Nike settlement to reflect a notable shift in the attitudes and practices of name-brand apparel manufacturers:

In the mid-’90s Kathie Lee Gifford was saying she didn’t know what the conditions were in supplier factories; she didn’t own them. . . . A company like Nike has moved way beyond that and has agreed that even though it doesn’t own the factories, it will be responsible for conditions in any supplier plant.²⁵⁵

Chiming in happily, Adele Simmons, the chairwoman of the FLA’s board, reveled in the unanticipated gift: “This money will be used, clearly, to contribute to our work on workers’ rights.”²⁵⁶

That sentiment suited Jim Carter, Nike’s Vice President and General Counsel, just fine. In a letter faxed to the organizations and lawyers who had filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court, Carter expressed the company’s gratitude for their support and explained its settlement decision: “As you can imagine,” the ever mild-mannered Carter wrote, “we did not relish the thought of spending the next several years expending extensive resources litigating the claims raised in the suit . . . .” After assessing the situation, Nike “concluded that settlement that focused on benefits to workers was the right choice. We firmly believe that this settlement is consistent with our long-term commitment to helping to improve the lives of workers, their families and their communities.”²⁵⁷

Less applause for the settlement came from other corners. First, there were the critics of Nike’s award to the FLA.²⁵⁸ Jeff Ballinger, founder of a worker- and consumer-advocacy organization, Press for Change, and author of negative reviews of Nike’s labor practices in the 1990s, claimed that the association is “totally in the pocket of business.” In his opinion, the settlement money should have flowed to overseas factory workers who are otherwise paid “starvation wages.” To the same effect, Kevin Danneher, co-founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based advocacy group that had pulled out of the FLA, slammed the organization as “a corporate front group.” “Nike got off real easy,” Danneher declared.

Even more troubled were First Amendment experts who expressed dismay that the California high court’s ruling in Nike now lived on.²⁵⁹“This was a very troublesome decision,” explained Kevin Goering, a media-law practitioner at New York’s Coudert Brothers. “Its sweeping definition of commercial speech, which exposed speech [that] plainly concerned a matter of public interest to liability without fault [for] an individual who hadn’t even been damaged by it, now applies to all speech by corporations that reaches California.” In a similar vein, Nike’s Supreme Court co-counsel Thomas Goldstein shed light on the corporate world’s reactions to the settlement: “The California rule genuinely frightens businesses . . . because even innocent mistakes made in important public debates can get you sued. And anyone breathing and in the state of California can sue.”

Such consequences, of course, were like honey to the palate of anti-globalization activists such as Jeff Milchen of ReclaimDemocracy.org. “Corporations have a legitimate role to play in society by doing business,” admitted Milchen. Nevertheless, he praised the added burdens on corporate speech inherent in the California Supreme Court’s decision: “But [corporations] do not have a legitimate role in influencing public policy. Corporations do not have any claim to the protection of our Bill of Rights.” Summing it up, Patrick Coughlin, one of Kasky’s lawyers, viewed the results of Nike as exactly right: “We think this will go a long way toward making people who want to do business in California speak truthfully.”