A conservative legal aid group is going after the NFL over a mandate for hiring new coaches that it dubs a “cynical assault on equality” that violates federal anti-discrimination laws by targeting whites.
On Tuesday, America First Legal, or AFL, which was launched by former aides to former President Donald Trump, sent a letter to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission demanding an investigation into the NFL over the Rooney Rule, which it argues violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
As recounted by AFL, the Rooney Rule, adopted by the NFL in 2003, was designed to “increase the number of minorities hired in head coach, general manager, and executive positions.”
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The Rule sought to boost “the historically low number of minorities in head coaching positions” — a situation that would or could be corrected by requiring “every team with a head coaching vacancy to interview at least one or more diverse (meaning nonwhite) candidates before making a new hire.”
“It is abundantly clear that the NFL and its member teams do indeed limit, segregate, or classify their employees or applicants for employment in ways that deprive at least some individuals of interview and employment opportunities specifically because of race, color, or sex,” the letter stated.
“Discrimination based on immutable characteristics such as race, color, national origin, or sex ‘generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone.’ More broadly, the discrimination highlighted in this case necessarily foments contention and resentment, it is ‘odious and destructive.’ It truly ‘is a sordid business, this divvying us up’ by race, color, or sex.”
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The NFL claimed the Rule would “foster and provide opportunity to diverse leadership throughout the NFL.”
“This diversity enriches the game and creates a more effective, quality organization from top to bottom,” the league maintained.
As AFL noted, the Rule has been updated several times in the past 21 years. Franchises must now interview at least two external minority candidates for head coaching and general manager vacancies, at least one external minority for a top assistant coach’s job, and at least one minority and/or woman for club president or other C-suite level jobs.
On its website, AFL noted, “Effectively, in the twenty years that the Rooney Rule has been in existence, all it has done – according to minority interviewees for head coaching positions and the former head of the NFL Players Association DeMaurice Smith – is result in member clubs engaging in sham interviews with minority candidates solely to check the Rooney Rule box.”
“Given the limited timeframe to hire executives and coaches after the season, this results in fewer opportunities for similarly situated, well-qualified candidates who are not minorities,” the group added.
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“The Rooney Rule interview policy is in clear violation of civil rights law which prohibits hiring practices that limit, segregate, or classify applicants for employment because of race, color, and/or sex. America First Legal is unrelenting in its fight to dismantle the DEI industrial complex that cuts at the heart of equality.”
In a statement AFL Senior Advisor Ian Prior said, “When millions of Americans tune in to the Super Bowl, they will be watching meritocracy in action; the best players, on the best teams, with the best coaches. Yet, every year during this time NFL teams must follow the ‘Rooney Rule’ and interview prospective coaches and executives, not because of their skill and hard work, but rather because of the color of their skin.”
“This process is not only insulting and condescending to prospective coaches who are merely interviewed to check a box, but it is also the exact kind of racial balancing that the Supreme Court of the United States has unequivocally denounced as illegal and anathema to equal protection under the law.”
“If the National Football League truly wants to end discrimination in the employment process, then the NFL should stop discriminating in the employment process, follow the meritocratic system it displays on the field, and eliminate the Rooney Rule,“ said Prior.
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