NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the league will work with Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier following receipt of a legal subpoena regarding the organization’s diversity hiring policies.
The Attorney General’s office issued the subpoena on May 13 as part of an investigation into possible civil rights violations connected to the Rooney Rule and other NFL employment policies and programs.
“I think we have been very clear about our programs, and we obviously evaluate them all the time, not just for how they get better, but also to make sure that they’re consistent with the law,” Goodell stated Tuesday at league meetings in Orlando, Florida. “We’re engaging with the Florida attorney general and will continue to. We’ll share everything we’re doing with them. We think it’s certainly within the law, but also something very positive.”
In March, Uthmeier warned of potential enforcement measures against the NFL unless it halted the 23-year-old Rooney Rule, which mandates teams interview a minimum of two external minority candidates for head coaching, general manager and coordinator roles. Teams must also interview at least one minority candidate for quarterbacks coach positions.
In correspondence to Goodell, Uthmeier characterized the Rooney Rule as “blatant race and sex discrimination.”
The legal document requires the league to appear at the attorney general’s Tallahassee office on June 12. It demands comprehensive documentation, including “all diversity reports, coaching census data, or demographic surveys that reflect the race and sex of coaching staffs of the teams from 2017 to the present.”
The investigation includes examination of the accelerator program, which the NFL established in 2022 as an expansion of the Rooney Rule to boost diversity among coaching staff and front office leadership.
The accelerator program provides participants chances to network with team owners and executives, plus attend educational sessions preparing them for future job interviews.
Following a pause last May, the NFL conducted its updated accelerator program Monday and Tuesday in Orlando. The revised version now includes nonminority participants, with nearly half of this year’s attendees being white men.
“There are a lot of candidates up there that are diverse, that are getting the opportunity to improve themselves and to get exposure, to get an opportunity,” Goodell said. “So, the people that are up there are the best of the best and they are a very diverse group, but they are the best of the best. And what we’re trying to do here is to make them even better and to give them opportunities. And that’s what I heard is that one, they appreciate the opportunity; two, it was helpful in that.”
