NFL pledges to keep ‘Rooney Rule’ despite Florida’s warning
· Yahoo Sports
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The National Football League won’t stop enforcing its “Rooney Rule” in the face of Florida’s threats of possible legal action over the longstanding diversity hiring practice, league Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday.
Speaking at the NFL’s annual meeting in Phoenix, Goodell said the league will “engage” with Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who last week warned the Rooney Rule and other similar hiring policies are “illegal” under Florida’s civil rights laws. But Goodell maintained the NFL believes its rule is “consistent” with state laws and will continue to be used to help “bring in the best talent.”
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“One thing that doesn’t change is for our values, and we believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League,” Goodell told reporters Tuesday.
The NFL’s stance supporting the Rooney Rule, expressed this week by Goodell and other key leaders — namely Pittsburgh Steelers team President Art Rooney II — could put the league on a collision course with Florida and its Republican leaders.
Last week, Uthmeier pressed the NFL to confirm by May 1 that it would stop enforcing its policies requiring teams to interview minority candidates, including women, or else the state could take “civil rights enforcement action.”
Rooney, a powerful figure in the NFL, told reporters Tuesday that while league owners did discuss the letter from Uthmeier, they were not planning to make any moves in response. The NFL, however, is expected to have “some discussion with the attorney general down there just to make sure he understands what exactly we do,” said Rooney, the son of late Steelers chairman Dan Rooney, the rule’s namesake.
“I don’t anticipate any dramatic changes to the Rooney Rule,” Rooney told local media Tuesday in Phoenix, as reported by Sports Illustrated. “We always are looking at our employment policy. Every year we do an analysis of what we’re doing and what we can do to improve the situation. But I don’t expect any major changes.”
Those comments coincide with Goodell’s message. The commissioner, though, did acknowledge the NFL will continue to evolve and change the rule, as the league has done in the past.
Created in 2003 by the NFL’s Workplace Diversity Committee, the Rooney Rule as it exists today requires every team to interview at least two external minority candidates for open head coach, coordinator and general manager jobs. At the same time, the policy rewards teams for developing minority staff by granting them compensatory draft picks if a minority coach or executive is hired away by another franchise.
But while the NFL celebrates these diversity hiring practices, Uthmeier contends they “require precisely what Florida law forbids” by calling on teams to “limit, segregate, and classify applicants for certain employment and training opportunities because of race and sex.” Uthmeier’s decision to go after the NFL aligns with ongoing attempts by Florida’s conservative leaders to rid the state of diversity, equity and inclusion-aligned policies, from public schools to colleges and now even local governments. A spokesperson for Uthmeier did not respond when asked about Goodell’s comments.
“As you know, the Rooney Rule is not a hiring mandate,” Goodell said Tuesday. “It’s intended to try to help, and it’s been used by industries far beyond football and far beyond the United States to help identify candidates and a diverse set of candidates to bring them better talent and give us an opportunity to hire the best talent, ultimately, and folks make those decisions individually. Those are, I think, principles of how we try to get better. Bring in the best talent.”
“The Rooney Rule has been around a long time. We’ve evolved it and changed it. We’ll continue to do that as circumstances warrant,” Goodell added.