Source: MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images / Getty
Civil rights leaders met with the commissioner of the NFL in the wake of a racial discrimination lawsuit accusing the professional football league of shady hiring practices that often defer to white head coaching applicants.
During the meeting on Monday, they told NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that it was time to revise and update the league’s policy to improve diversity recruitment efforts, including and especially the so-called Rooney Rule that Brian Flores’ lawsuit claims has been an utter failure — and “sham.”
MORE: Brian Flores Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Is Latest Vindication Of Kaepernick’s Collusion Claims
The meeting came on the same day the Houston Texas hired Lovie Smith, a Black man, to be its head coach.
However, the civil rights leader said that the Rooney Rule — which the NFL adopted in 2003 to require teams to interview at least two minority candidates for their head coach openings — is “deceptively” used by teams to feign the appearance of racially equitable searches for candidates.
“However well-intentioned, the effect of the Rooney Rule has been for team decision-makers to regard interviews with candidates of color as an extraneous step, rather than an integral part of the hiring process,” Urban League CEO Marc Morial said in a statement emailed to NewsOne.
With the hiring of Smith, there is still one fewer Black head coach in the NFL than there was when the Rooney Rule was instituted.
“The gravity of the situation is long past the crisis point,” Morial emphasized.
The Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network said the NFL must effect tangible change, not rhetorical.
“The Rooney Rule has been proven to be something the owners used to deceptively appear to be seeking real diversity,” Sharpton said. “We must have firm targets and timetables.”
Other civil rights leaders who met with Goodell on Monday include Black Civic Participation President and CEO Melanie Campbell, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson and National African American Clergy Network co-convener Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner.
In a 58-page document filed in Manhattan federal court, Flores — who was fired by the Miami Dolphins last month after three seasons as head coach — alleged a pattern of racist hiring practices by the NFL and racial discrimination during the interview process with the Denver Broncos and New York Giants, as well as during his tenure with Miami.
For instance, according to the suit, during Flores’ interview with the Denver Broncos in 2019, then-General Manager John Elway, President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Ellis and others showed up an hour late. They also looked like they had spent the night prior drinking heavily, the lawsuit claims. Flores said he believed the interview only happened so the Broncos could comply with the Rooney Rule and that the team never had any intention of hiring Flores.
The hiring of Smith this week meant there were only two Black head coaches in the entire 32-team league.
Of the nine head coaching vacancies that emerged at the end of the regular season, five have been filled, all but one going to white coaches. In a league in which most of the players are Black, it’s hard to ignore that most of the NFL head coaches are white.
In 2021, the league expanded the Rooney Rule to include general managers and offensive and defensive coordinators.
SEE ALSO:
Brian Flores Lawsuit Forces NFL To Address Persisting ‘Racial Injustice’ Within The League
NFL Left With Few Black Head Coached 10 Years After Claiming It Wanted To Become More Diverse
January 27, 1894 Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, hall of fame football coach and the first African American head coach in the National Football League, was born in Chicago, Illinois. Pollard played college football at Brown University from 1915 to 1918. pic.twitter.com/QJbSeMDA2z
Now-former Head Coach Brian Flores of the Miami Dolphins talks with an official during a game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium on January 2, 2022, in Nashville, Tennessee. | Source: Wesley Hitt / Getty With all the controversy surrounding the NFL and its alleged efforts at diversifying head coaching around the professional football league, it’s worth putting things in their proper perspective for folks who may be shrugging and wondering what the big deal is. After all, they may be musing, isn’t the NFL disproportionately made up of Black players? Must Black folks be head coaches too, critics might be wondering? MORE: The NFL Has A Major Black Head Coach Problem Of course, that type of logic is counterproductive and completely beside the point, what with the new racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a former Black head coach and alleging that the NFL’s ownership is colluding to keep teams’ head coaches as white as possible. Brian Flores, who used to be head coach of the Miami Dolphins, filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL claiming there is racial discrimination in the hiring process. Specifically, Flores claims he’s had multiple incidents of racial discrimination that involved several teams, as well as coaches and executives around the league. In the suit, Flores cites text messages from New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick, who said he believed he was contacting Brian Daboll, another coach interviewing for the New York Giants head coaching position. In the text message, Belichick confirmed Daboll had already secured the job, but Flores had not yet interviewed for the position. This revelation meant Flores’ upcoming interview with the Giants was a sham because they had already hired their next head coach, who is not Black. The fact is that Flores’ claims are hardly unique and help bolster critics’ suspicions that the NFL is intentionally trying to keep its head coaching ranks as white as possible despite the league’s so-called Rooney Rule, a policy that requires teams to interview at least one “diverse” candidate when looking to hire new coaches. The rule was expanded in 2009 to include general managers as well as other front-office positions. https://twitter.com/NFL_DovKleiman/status/1488983262802362375?s=20&t=jfbS28R8diLGgAOnbc5IkQ To be sure, the NFL has had more than 500 head coaches over the course of more than a century of competition. Just 24 of them have been Black. For perspective’s sake, the NFL entered Black History Month 2022 with just one single Black head coach despite its vow a decade earlier to increase diversity among its head and assistant coaches. The league has even gone to such drastic measures as partnering with rap legend JAY Z in the name of “entertainment and social justice” as a way to help accomplish its evasive mission. But so far, nothing has really worked. Is it because the NFL is an organization akin to “slavery,” like blacklisted free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick said after he was effectively excommunicated from the league following his silent kneeling protest to demonstrate against the police brutality of Black people? That certainly lines up with what Flores’ lawsuit is alleging. Flores still has upcoming interviews for head coaching positions with at least two other teams, so, considering the public relations fiasco that his lawsuit is, chances are that pressure will result in him being hired. But, if history is any indication — and it is — that’s far from a guarantee. Either way, Flores. said his lawsuit will not be deterred regardless of whether he is or isn’t an NFL head coach next season. In the meantime, keep reading to get familiar with the dozens of Black people who have worked as NFL head coaches in the league’s more than 100-year history.
Civil Rights Leaders Confront NFL Commissioner About ‘Deceptively’ Used Rooney Rule: ‘Good Intentions Are Not Enough’ was originally published on newsone.com
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