NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week the league has no plans to bow to the Florida attorney general’s demands that the league suspend its rule aimed at promoting diverse hiring.
The so-called Rooney Rule, which merely requires that teams grant interviews to nonwhite candidates as they search for coaches and top executive positions, has come under fire from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. Uthmeier, who’s engaged in a primary race as he seeks re-election, issued legal threats last week, absurdly framing the rule as discriminatory. As I explained in my post on Uthmeier’s umbrage, his rhetoric mirrored that of other conservatives who frame diversity policies as inherently discriminatory toward white people.
“We believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League,” Goodell said at a news conference Tuesday.
In response to one reporter, he defended the rule and said the league would “engage with the Florida AG or anybody else” to discuss it:
We are well aware of the laws and where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those, and we certainly will engage with the Florida AG or anybody else, as we have in the past, to talk about our policies and what they are. As you know, the Rooney Rule is not a hiring mandate. It’s intended to try to help, and it’s been used by industries far beyond football, far beyond the United States, to help identify candidates — and a diverse set of candidates — to bring in better talent and give us an opportunity to hire the best talent, ultimately. And the clubs make those decisions individually, and those are, I think, principles of how we try to get better: [bringing] in the best talent.
When Goodell was asked whether the rule was going anywhere, he said: “No.”
The commissioner added: “The Rooney Rule has been around a long time. We’ve evolved it; we’ve changed it. We’ll continue to do that as circumstances warrant.”
Criticism of the NFL’s rule hasn’t come solely from people wanting to destroy it. Some people invested in seeing the coaching and executive ranks become more racially diverse have criticized the Rooney Rule’s ineffectiveness in bringing widespread, lasting change.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.