Brian Flores, the Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator who filed a bombshell lawsuit accusing the NFL and several of its teams of racial discrimination that generally stops Black men from getting head coaching jobs, got a big boost this week when a federal judge unsealed a recruiting memo for a high-profile job in the league.
That memo, particularly its criticism of Flores based on negative stereotypes about Black men, is likely to make even people who aren’t football fans pay attention to this drama, especially women and people who aren’t white who’ve applied for work in corporate spaces.
Korn Ferry prepared a one-pager on Flores that described him as “polished and a good presenter despite growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn (same as Mike Tyson).”
As first reported by Front Office Sports, as the Las Vegas Raiders were considering hiring Flores in 2024, executive search firm Korn Ferry prepared a one-pager on Flores that described him as “polished and a good presenter despite growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn (same as Mike Tyson).” The report noted that Flores “was able to build a strong friendship with a billionaire’s son which gave him opportunities to socialize and learn how to build relationships with white-collar and upper-class individuals.”
It’s no wonder that Korn Ferry, which isn’t a defendant in the Flores lawsuit and handles executive searches across many industries, argued that its report should remain sealed. The document gives full expression to the he-speaks-so-well prejudice that Black people commonly face. As such, the document will feel uncomfortably familiar to Black candidates in corporate America who have felt the constraint of the glass ceiling.
The Raiders never interviewed Flores.
“The recently unsealed documents demonstrate two unfortunate, but unsurprising, realities,” Flores’ lawyers at Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis, Elefterakis & Panek said in a statement Tuesday. “First, that Mr. Flores’ decision to hold the league and its teams accountable for systemic race discrimination has been met with unlawful retaliation. Second, discrimination continues to play a significant role in the hiring process for NFL Head Coaches, as evidenced by the fact that the candidate profile prepared for the Raiders leans heavily on racial stereotypes. We and Mr. Flores are committed to eradicating the institutional racism and retaliation that permeates the league, its teams and their partners.”
Neither Korn Ferry, the Raiders or the NFL responded to The New York Times’ request for comment.
During the NFL’s most recent offseason, none of its 10 head coach vacancies was filled by a Black candidate. The only new head coach who isn’t white is the Tennessee Titans’ Robert Saleh, who was born in the U.S. to Lebanese immigrants. Though Flores’ focus is football, it’s hard not to think of Korn Ferry’s dossier on him as a peek into executive hiring that most Americans never see. Job candidates who’ve suspected that their fitness for a position was assessed by people with backward views of race don’t get to see copies of the memos confirming their suspicions.
Though Flores’ focus is football, it’s hard not to think of Korn Ferry’s dossier on him as a peek into executive hiring that most Americans never see.
Regarding Flores growing up in Brownsville, surely other executive candidates with blue-collar beginnings have learned to navigate elite spaces without it being deemed remarkable. Anyone on the short list for an NFL head-coaching gig would likely be comfortable with rich decision-makers. It’s hard to imagine an executive headhunter describing a candidate as having grown up in Howard Beach, Queens, like John Gotti did.
In detailing Flores’ strengths and weaknesses, Korn Ferry did make some relevant assessments. It noted his “unorthodox” defensive schemes that make life difficult for NFL quarterbacks (a positive) and his history of sometimes clashing with the front office (a negative). In corporate America, one could imagine a similar analysis applied to a CEO candidate whose product launches have been profitable but whose management style rankles the rest of the C-suite and board of directors.
The firm’s assessment that Flores “has a chip on his shoulder” was listed as a strength and a weakness. In its view, his desire to prove his own worth, an essential trait for almost any ascendant professional, was offset by the claim that he “can be a dictator with players, coaches, and can even be a difficult with ownership.”
Concerns related to personality might be defensible. Black professionals are certain to hear bigoted coding in assessing a Black man as well-spoken but with a chip on his shoulder, yet personality and cultural fit matter when the job is a direct report to billionaires and the work includes managing a team of 53 wealthy, elite performers. It’s harder to excuse other language Korn Ferry used: “He can fool you with his polish upwards” and “needs someone at the top to reign [sic] in some of his worst behavior.”
Korn Ferry listed Flores’ lawsuit accusing the NFL of racism as a demerit to his candidacy, which is ironic because the Korn Ferry report wrongly assesses him based on racist expectations of how Black men should act. The league makes millionaires out of elite players who are majority Black, but its teams are mostly owned by white billionaires who have long been accused of failing — or not even trying — to grant equal opportunity for top-level jobs to Black candidates like Flores or his co-plaintiffs, former NFL coaches Steve Wilks and Ray Horton.
Korn Ferry listed Flores’ lawsuit accusing the NFL of racism as a demerit to his candidacy, which is ironic because the Korn Ferry report wrongly assesses him based on racist expectations of how Black men should act.
Their lawsuit was filed in 2022, three years before President Donald Trump made dismantling the Black managerial class a focus of his domestic policy by attacking diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at major companies, in academia and in the federal government.
In that context, the firm’s report on Flores feels especially heavy. Black professionals everywhere are being told that DEI initiatives are wrong because they focus on race, and this report about Flores is clearly looking at him through a racialized lens. That’s why it’s bigger than football. The Korn Ferry document will certainly be received as an important piece of the puzzle to many others not named Flores who are struggling to reconcile their skills and accomplishments with the incongruent trajectory of their careers.
The post A memo about this Black NFL coaching applicant absurdly brings up Mike Tyson appeared first on MS NOW.
Author: Source Author
From MS Now.
Leave a Reply