Opinion: The billionaire should be ashamed of his support of reprehensible political candidates.
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This ignorant and smug statement, fitting of a spoiled billionaire, was that of Nike founder Phil Knight.
This Oregonian Elon, who specializes in mass-producing ugly cheapo sportswear clothing, donated a total of $1.5 million to Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan.
Knight also donated nearly $5 million to former moderate-Democrat-turned-Unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, who had no chance of actually winning and served only to split the Democratic vote in Drazan’s favor.
In the end, Christine Drazan came within a few points of Democrat Tina Kotek in the gubernatorial race, with Betsy Johnson taking over 8% of the vote. Kotek ultimately won the governorship.
Drazan, a candidate who opposed abortion access, climate change legislation, gun control and transgender athletes from participating in sports, came scarily close to winning against Kotek, in no small part because of Knight’s large donations.
Lane County, which holds the University of Oregon, voted Democratic in the past few elections, in large part due to UO’s college student demographics, who statistically tend to vote Democratic.
Students at UO itself have held protests against gun violence, police brutality, climate change and abortion rights. And now we have been put at risk of coming under control of a conservative governor and state legislature, who overwhelmingly would not share our values. It is simply immoral to support these candidates.
Knight is now donating millions of dollars to candidates who openly disrespect youth, our lives and our futures (especially with regard to climate change). These candidates would have control over the state of Oregon, and by extension, the UO Board of Trustees, which is appointed by the governor.
Of course, Phil Knight also donates large sums of money to UO and its athletics team; in 2021, Knight donated over $270 million to UO’s Hayward Field project. However, his influence at Oregon has become quite noticeable, and students have become distrustful of Knight and UO’s relationship.
Phil Knight does not represent the students or values of UO. We do not like him, and we do not want his influence here.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct an error. The piece previously claimed that Knight had donated over a billion dollars to UO’s Hayward Field project, when in reality he had only donated $270 million. Phil Knight has donated approximately one billion dollars to the University of Oregon overall.
