Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The NFL will not scrap pro-diversity policies that require teams to interview minority candidates, despite legal pressure from Florida’s Republican attorney general, commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday. American football’s Rooney Rule has come under fire from conservatives at a time when President Donald Trump is waging war on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies — a series of often decades-old measures meant to combat racism and sexism across the United States.
“One thing that doesn’t change is our values. And we believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League,” said Goodell at the NFL’s annual league meeting. “We are well aware of the laws and where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those.”
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Adopted by the National Football League in 2003 to address the lack of people of color in top coaching positions, the Rooney Rule requires franchises to interview at least one minority candidate. It does not require teams to hire any specific candidate. Last week, Florida’s top prosecutor, Trump ally James Uthmeier, wrote to the NFL declaring the affirmative action policy “illegal.” “NFL fans in Florida don’t care what color their coach’s skin is,” Uthmeier wrote.
But Goodell pointed out that the rule “is not a hiring mandate,” and that it has been adopted in industries “far beyond football, far beyond the United States” to bring in better talent. The rule “gives us an opportunity to hire the best talent, ultimately, and the clubs make those decisions individually,” he noted.
A vast range of DEI programs have come under pressure at the federal and state level since Trump returned to the White House last year. Trump last week signed an executive order prohibiting companies doing business with the federal government from having policies meant to combat racism or sexism in the workforce. Uthmeier’s letter said the Rooney Rule violated Florida’s state law.
Despite the pushback against the Rooney Rule, which has been expanded to apply to general manager and coordinator positions as well as head coach roles, pro-diversity groups say its impact has been limited. Across 32 teams, the NFL currently has five minority head coaches, of whom three are Black, while some 70 percent of NFL players are African-American.
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