Almost anytime you’re officially fired it’s a good idea to at least speak with an employment attorney. They may have useful information you didn’t know about or consider.
That said it’s also important to remember a few things. Like most states Oregon is an “at will” employment state which means you can be fired for almost any reason or no reason at all, and with no prior notice. Gotta love America! No wonder so many people are a nervous wreck, knowing that in most jobs there’s no such thing as job security.
Also from what I heard the people who were fired for this incident either knew or should have known that what they were doing was prohibited. Obviously the kickbacks at least were a huge problem and maybe even fraud. Wouldn’t surprise me if the IRS was all over that.
If you genuinely didn’t know or think you were doing anything wrong speak with a lawyer. It could be that you were mislead by someone else either accidentally or maliciously. If the latter that might make you a victim too! You know all the actual facts better than me or most other people so only you can decide if consulting a lawyer is worth your time. Like I said above though your chances probably aren’t great of being reinstated or receiving other recompense. For better or worse Nike usually knows what it’s doing when it fires people.
Now your time is probably best spent looking for another job and figuring out how you’re going to explain the involuntary departure from Nike. My advice is this: be brutally honest when you interview and convincingly explain that you unintentionally violated a company policy regarding charitable donations. If possible also be willing to offer a new company evidence that it was an honest mistake. When I interview people I would much rather hear bad news that’s honest rather than have someone think they can get one over on me. Truth is I’ll probably find out the real reason they were fired and if it’s any different than what they told me that’s an obvious hard “No” on hiring them. Even if I hire them and learn after the fact that they lied to me I’ll then either see if they can be fired for lying about it, or I’ll do whatever I legally can to make their work lives as miserable as possible until they quit. Once that bond of trust is broken it isn’t coming back.
I’ve seen people snap back from far worse things. As long as you don’t start telling people you were a star volleyball player at Baruch College there’s probably hope for you.