{"id":270542,"date":"2026-05-14T06:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/270542\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T06:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:44:14","slug":"florida-attorney-general-issues-subpoena-to-nfl-over-rooney-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/270542\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida attorney general issues subpoena to NFL over Rooney Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL\u2019s problems extend beyond the federal government\u2019s current political proctology regarding the broadcast antitrust exemption. Florida\u2019s attorney general continues to harass The Shield over the Rooney Rule and other diversity-related initiatives.<\/p>\n

James Uthmeier posted on Twitter<\/a> his most recent letter to the league. The letter attached an \u201cinvestigative subpoena,\u201d which Uthmeier did not add to his tweet. (Uthmeier also did not attach the NFL\u2019s May 1 response to Uthmeier\u2019s initial letter.)<\/p>\n

The letter Uthmeier sent to the league on Wednesday says plenty. It suggests that the league has violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by revising \u201cmany references\u201d on its public website to its allegedly \u201cunlawful \u2018inclusive hiring\u2019 policies.\u201d (Kalyn Kahler of ESPN has pointed out the various changes<\/a> that have been made.)<\/p>\n

From the new Uthmeier letter: “[Y]ou say the NFL has scrubbed those representations from its website because they do no \u2018accurately reflect the NFL\u2019s current programs and policies.\u2019 Why, then, were they there to begin with?\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, the legal assault by Uthmeier on the NFL now has two fronts: (1) \u201cthe Rooney Rule and the NFL\u2019s related \u2018inclusive hiring\u2019 policies”; and (2) \u201cthe NFL\u2019s representations about those policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, Uthmeier focused only on the Rooney Rule and demanded that the league suspended it as to the NFL\u2019s three teams based in Florida (Jaguars, Buccaneers, Dolphins). The new letter targets multiple diversity-related initiatives. For example, the new letter focuses on the provision that gives a pair of third-round draft picks to teams \u201cwho developed minority talent that went on to become GMs or head coaches across the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writes Uthmeier: \u201cYou claim, with emphasis, that these draft \u2018picks are only offered after an employee has been hired by another team as a head coach.\u2019 Italics aside, so what? In the end, this program provides a \u2018retroactiv[e]-reward[]\u2019 for the initial hiring and development of minority candidates. This is not a race-neutral employment policy. It is a directive that Florida\u2019s teams consider race and sex in determining which candidates should be hired and developed. Florida law prohibits such policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new letter from Uthmeier shows that the NFL\u2019s response didn\u2019t make the situation any better, from Uthmeier\u2019s perspective. If anything, Uthmeier believes it made things worse.<\/p>\n

Now, the NFL will have to decide whether and to what extent it will cooperate with the subpoena issued by Uthmeier. Then, Uthmeier will have to decide whether to launch a formal enforcement action, either as to the alleged racial biases in the NFL\u2019s diversity initiatives or as to the alleged misrepresentations made by the NFL, or both.<\/p>\n

It also remains to be seen whether and to what extent the federal government will expand its scrutiny of the league\u2019s broadcasting policies to include a closer look at the league\u2019s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.<\/p>\n

However it goes from here, the league has multiple public political problems that, to date, it has been unable to solve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL\u2019s problems extend beyond the federal government\u2019s current political proctology regarding the broadcast antitrust exemption. Florida\u2019s attorney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-270542","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\/270542","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=270542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}