Last month, former NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith explained in a visit to PFT Live at the Super Bowl that accountability when it comes to the league\u2019s hiring practices could come from the attorneys general of one or more states in which the NFL does business.<\/p>\n
That has happened, but not in the way that Smith would have envisioned.<\/p>\n
In a video posted Wednesday on Twitter, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier demanded that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext week, the NFL\u2019s annual league meeting begins in Phoenix, Arizona,\u201d Uthmeier said. \u201cAnd the NFL draft is only a month away. Ahead of the annual meeting, my office is sending a letter to the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell regarding the league\u2019s hiring practices. Specifically, the use of the so-called Rooney Rule, which requires NFL teams to interview candidates based on race. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe NFL\u2019s use of the Rooney Rule violates Florida law by requiring race-based considerations in hiring. Florida law is clear. Hiring decisions cannot be based on race, and the Rooney Rule mandates race-based interviews and incentivizes race-based decisions. That\u2019s discrimination. We\u2019re demanding the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule<\/a>, and failure to do so may result in enforcement actions against the league for race-based discrimination. NFL teams and their fans don\u2019t care about the race of the coaching staff. They want a merit-based system that gives their team the best chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n The move comes at a time when the NFL has been tiptoeing around the federal government\u2019s assault against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Recently, the league expanded its Accelerator program<\/a> to include non-minority candidates, arguing that it was not influenced by the current political climate.<\/p>\n The easy reaction to DEI efforts is to argue that all decisions should be based on merit. The NFL\u2019s traditional hiring practices suggest otherwise; NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent\u2019s admissions regarding the existence of a \u201cdouble standard<\/a>\u201d were featured in the pending lawsuit filed by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores against the Dolphins, the league, and multiple teams.<\/p>\n It remains to be seen whether Uthmeier follows through with his threat, if the NFL doesn\u2019t suspend the Rooney Rule. Coincidentally, or not, Florida took no action after Flores claimed that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered to pay Flores $100,000<\/a> for each game Flores lost in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, former NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith explained in a visit to PFT Live at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-545547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}