An interesting blend of sports and employment law is developing down in Florida, where the attorney general has launched an inquiry into the National Football League's hiring practices.
No, this isn't a challenge to
the Dolphins’ lousy draft picks over the last several years. Rather, it relates
to the NFL’s so-called “Rooney Rule,” which mandates that clubs seeking to hire
for certain positions must interview minority candidates as part of any hiring
process. The intent of the Rule originally was to diversify NFL coaching ranks,
allegedly in light of the fact that although the majority of the league's
players were African American, only about 10 to 15% of the head coaches were
black. The Rule has since expanded to require NFL teams to interview at
least two candidates who are either persons of color and/or women for open head
coach, general manager and offensive and defensive coordinator positions.
The League used the same principle to encompass several other hiring
requirements, some of which the AG maintains were clearly discriminatory
because they required teams to hire minority or women staff members or game
officials.
In response to the AG’s challenges, the NFL immediately modified some of its policies' language, which didn't make them look guilty or anything, and which simply aroused the suspicions of the AG investigative team. The Attorney General also points to other statements from the NFL indicating that it was looking to increase the number of minorities hired across its senior management positions.
You can read the letter here . What seems to be happening to the NFL is the same thing that is happening to a number of corporate entities across the country that embraced DEI policies over the last 10 years. Outright expressions of racial or gender preferences in those DEI policies now make those companies targets for both federal investigators and state Attorneys General looking for high profile cases with relatively straightforward evidence of illegal preferences in hiring or promotion.
This one's going to drag on for a while. Stay tuned.
