Florida’s far-right attorney general is threatening the NFL in an effort to kill a decades-old rule designed to hire more nonwhite head coaches.
State attorney general James Uthmeier is currently running in a Republican primary race for re-election later this year, which is important context for some patently absurd, MAGA-brained legal crusades he’s launched of late. Last year, for example, he accused medical organizations of racketeering because they’d reached a fact-based consensus on the safety of gender-affirming care.
Now, Uthmeier is going after the NFL over its Rooney Rule.
The rule, which requires teams to interview at least two nonwhite candidates for head coach roles, was instituted in 2003 following an analysis backed by lawyer Johnnie Cochran that showed how hiring disparities affected Black coaches in the league, in which the majority of players are Black. The analysis found hiring disparities between Black and white coaches, despite a finding that Black coaches outperform white counterparts in several metrics.
“Complexion of the decision-makers often creates barriers to equal opportunity,” the report read. “It is not always a case of overt or conscious racism; more often, it is about people being most comfortable with those who are most familiar to them.”
Uthmeier, echoing conservative propaganda that has framed antidiscrimination efforts as racist toward white people, said in a video on Wednesday that the rule defies Florida law because “hiring decisions cannot be based on race.” He demanded the league suspend the rule or face potential “enforcement action … for race-based discrimination.”
“NFL teams and their fans don’t care about the race of the coaching staff,” Uthmeier said. “They want a merit-based system that gives their team the best chance to win.”
The NFL did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
Some corrections are in order. The Rooney Rule doesn’t require that hiring decisions be based on race — only that teams at least interview nonwhite candidates. In fact, some critics have complained that the Rooney Rule is somewhat ineffective because Black head coach hirings have remained stubbornly low. And that’s because the rule does not force teams to hire nonwhite coaches if they don’t want to. (As an Arizona Cardinals fan, I am acutely aware that teams are apparently well within their rights to give Black coaches short shrift and hire as many mediocre white guys as they please.)
Like many diversity efforts, the rule set out to save some team executives from their own narrow worldview by encouraging them to search out qualified candidates from groups they may have otherwise overlooked. It encourages them to broaden the pool of candidates they consider, under the belief that considering a wider range of coaching options will increase their chance of success. So to be clear: The Rooney Rule set out to correct the NFL’s merit crisis; it hasn’t created one, as Uthmeier suggests.
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