The NFL\u2019s annual league meeting will begin Sunday, and Florida attorney general James Uthmeier has one demand for the league: That it suspend the Rooney Rule.<\/p>\n
In a video Wednesday, Uthmeier called for the rule to be suspended, saying it violates Florida law by \u201crequiring race-based considerations in hiring.\u201d Uthmeier threatened \u201cenforcement actions against the league for race-based discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rooney Rule, which was instituted by the league in 2003, requires teams to \u201cinterview at least one or more diverse candidates before making a new hire.\u201d The policy initially only applied to head-coaching jobs, though it has expanded to other roles since its introduction. Since 2009, both \u201cgeneral manager and primary football executive jobs\u201d require NFL teams to interview two minority candidates<\/a>, per the NFL\u2019s website.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Uthmeier sent a letter to the league urging it to stop applying the Rooney Rule to NFL teams in Florida \u2014 which include the Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If the league does not comply, Uthmeier threatened that he would consider \u201ca civil rights enforcement action<\/a>.\u201d Uthmeier did not specify exactly what that would entail.<\/p>\n The NFL\u2019s annual league meeting will begin Sunday, March 29, and run through Wednesday, April 1. At the meeting, teams and owners typically discuss league business, including possible rule changes<\/a> for the upcoming season. This year, owners will also vote on the site of Super Bowl LXIII, though it\u2019s expected that will be awarded to Las Vegas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prior to Wednesday, the Rooney Rule was not among the items reported to be on the docket during the annual league meeting. It\u2019s unclear whether Uthmeier\u2019s demand or threats will change the NFL\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n NFL commissioner Roger Goodell typically takes part in a press conference during the annual league meeting. If Goodell doesn\u2019t respond to Uthmeier\u2019s demand before that presser, the commissioner will almost certainly address the issue while speaking with the media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL\u2019s annual league meeting will begin Sunday, and Florida attorney general James Uthmeier has one demand for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[95323,28,30,29,121,4260,12035,1763,119,94753,94733,2964],"class_list":["post-208022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-annual-league","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-las-vegas","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-nfl","tag-roger-goodell","tag-rooney-rule","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}