Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said he has issued an investigative subpoena to the NFL regarding the Rooney Rule.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier, who threatened possible enforcement actions against the league in March if it didn\u2019t suspend the 23-year-old rule, sent the subpoena along with a letter to NFL executive vice president and attorney Ted Ullyot on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll in all, the Rooney Rule and the NFL\u2019s related \u2018inclusive hiring\u2019 policies \u2014 and the NFL\u2019s representations about these policies \u2014 continue to raise significant concerns under Florida law,\u201d Uthmeier wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n
The Rooney Rule requires teams to interview at least two minority candidates for head coach, general manager and coordinator positions. At least one minority candidate must be interviewed for the quarterbacks coach position.<\/p>\n
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, speaking at the league meetings in Phoenix in March, acknowledged the changing political landscape for diversity initiatives in the U.S. but added that he didn\u2019t believe there should be any legal issues with the league\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Rooney Rule has been around a long time,\u201d Goodell said then. \u201cWe\u2019ve evolved it, changed it. We\u2019ll continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NFL didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In his latest letter, Uthmeier commended the league for altering the Rooney Rule language on its website after receiving his initial warning letter in March but added the revisions raise more questions.<\/p>\n
The updated terminology on the NFL site says: \u201cThe Rooney Rule establishes best practices designed to expand opportunity and strengthen the NFL\u2019s talent pipeline across leadership roles. It is part of a broader effort to develop a deep and sustainable talent pipeline across all levels of the NFL. The policy is intended to ensure that qualified candidates from a wide range of backgrounds are identified and considered for leadership roles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The website previously stated the Rooney Rule aims to \u201cincrease the number of minorities hired\u201d in leadership positions and said that diversity \u201cenriches the game and creates a more effective, quality organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate how quickly the NFL changed its website in response to our letter and capitulated on some of their discriminatory hiring quotas,\u201d Uthmeier said. \u201cBut their response raises more questions about the Rooney Rule, and we look forward to their cooperation with the investigative subpoena we issued them today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Uthmeier sent his first letter to Goodell in March, saying the rule amounts to \u201cblatant race and sex discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The subpoena expands the focus beyond the Rooney Rule and includes other NFL diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including a discontinued mandate that required teams to hire a minority offensive assistant; the diversity accelerator program; the Mackie development program for college officials; and the resolution that awards teams draft picks if one of its minority assistant coaches or executives is hired to be the coach or general manager of another team.<\/p>\n
The NFL\u2019s front office and coach accelerator program will be held next week in Orlando after it was paused in 2025. The program was created as an extension of the Rooney Rule in 2022 to increase diversity among coaches and front office executives. It will now include nonminority participants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said he has issued an investigative subpoena to the NFL regarding the Rooney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-269983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269983","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=269983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}