Time to Revisit the Rooney Rule’s Promises for NFL Diversity

In February 2022, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores announced his lawsuit against the National Football League and three teams, alleging discrimination against him in the hiring process and other issues. Flores’ suit, filed in a federal court in New York City, has opened up a nationwide discussion about the persistence of racism and unfair hiring processes in American sports. In his complaint, Flores states that the NFL today is run much like a “plantation.” 

The basics of the lawsuit 

The suit, as filed, seeks class-action status. This will allow others who may have been similarly harmed by the defendants to join the process. Class action lawsuits are particularly effective in cases involving employment discrimination since they allow a wide range of plaintiffs alleging similar treatment to demonstrate a pattern while showing strength in numbers. 

Flores’ suit specifically names the Miami Dolphins, the New York Giants, and the Denver Broncos as defendants. He alleges that Denver and New York followed discriminatory hiring practices during their job interview processes following his dismissal in January 2022 from Miami. He also alleges that, before his firing, Miami leadership soured on him after he refused to lose games on purpose to get a preferred draft-pick position and refused to participate in an “improper” advance private meeting with a “prominent quarterback” the team owner hoped to sign.  

Evidence of bias 

Coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots unwittingly provided evidence to substantiate Flores’ allegations when he sent a private text message three days before Flores was due to interview with New York. Belichick sent the congratulatory message to Flores, believing he was congratulating Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who indeed ended up as the hire. Belichick’s mistake supports the conclusion that the team had already decided on hiring for the position before its leaders even spoke with Flores. 

The good and the bad of the Rooney Rule 

The text message supports the allegation that the team was simply looking to cover itself from charges of discrimination by fulfilling the Rooney Rule. This league-wide NFL policy, instituted two decades ago, requires teams to interview candidates who come from ethnic minorities for coaching and general management positions. A related policy stipulates that a team must interview a female candidate for every front-office position. The ruling gets its name from the late Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney. It intends to make sure that talented people from historically underrepresented groups will have an even playing field when applying for top positions in the league.  

The idea, which sounds naive today, was that if owners and their hiring staff had the opportunity to interview a diverse set of candidates, they would often end up selecting people of color for coaching and managing positions. Given that studies show coaches of color often lead White coaches in team performance, in the abstract, this would not be an unfounded assumption. But the world we live in is far from abstract. 

The current NFL doesn’t seem to have learned anything from the experiences that led to the formation of the Rooney Rule in the first place. While close to 60 percent of players are Black, only one Black head coach—Mike Tomlin of the Steelers—remains in the league. That’s fewer than when the rule was first implemented. Additionally, not a single owner is Black. This lack of diversity isn’t for lack of choice. The NFL is filled with high-achieving Black assistant coaches, and during the lead-up to Super Bowl LVI, several teams had vacancies at the top.  

Rather than dictating hiring outcomes, the originators of the Rooney Rule wanted to open up opportunities to a wider pool of applicants, essentially making the league more inclusive and fairer. That’s not what’s happening in practice, though, according to Flores’ lawsuit. His legal team states that the rule might have been “well-intentioned,” but it is “not working.”  

Flores himself has said that right before he went into interviews with the Broncos, he had the sinking feeling that he was only there because of the Rooney Rule. The interviewers kept him waiting for about an hour, then appeared notably ill-prepared to have a substantive conversation with him. With Denver, as with New York, Flores had the strong sensation that the new head coach was already chosen. 

Supporters believe that the rule, as initially set up, did provide an infrastructure of accountability and that it has often worked as intended. They point to rule enforcement against the Detroit Lions in its first year of operation, with the Lions receiving a six-figure fine.  

Where it all fell apart with the Rooney Rule was in 2017 when the Oakland Raiders chose to hire Jon Gruden first and hold interviews with other candidates after. In this case, however, the NFL failed to enforce the consequences of the Rooney Rule.  

You could even further support this argument by pointing what we might choose to call the “Gruden Corollary.” The Raiders’ flouting of the Rooney Rule prompted the league to add provisions requiring teams to retain transparent records of the interview process and to make these accessible to the NFL on demand; to interview job candidates who come from outside their clubs; and to include the ultimate decision-makers in every interview. In this view, it’s all about enforcement.  

Calls for change 

A coalition of civil rights leaders from the NAACP and other groups met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell after Flores’ suit made headlines. The leaders wanted to stress their opinion that the Rooney Rule has essentially become a performative act of diversity. It just isn’t doing what it was ostensibly meant to do. They requested that the NFL replace it with a more meaningful and enforceable rule, one that would bring measurable consequences for teams who fail to live up to the hard work of ensuring real diversity in hiring.  

Whatever happens going forward, it looks like people have found enough problems with the Rooney Rule to either reform it significantly or scrap it and put in place a system that would ensure full accountability—and the benefits that come with a diverse leadership team. It really is long past time.