Diversity In Football: NFL Lawsuit

According to the Associated Press, five Black head coaches currently work in the NFL. This means that out of 32 teams in the league, five employ non-white coaches. In a league with over 70% of players who identify as minorities, less than one-sixth of the coaches identify as a race other than white. Not only has this remained a pervasive issue, but former coach Brian Flores alleges in his lawsuit that substantial bias plays a role in hiring by white general managers and owners. As CNN writes, “Flores accused the New York Giants of interviewing him last month for their vacant head coach job under ‘sham’ circumstances.” Flores suing the NFL brings back into light the hiring practices of the NFL.

Non-diverse hiring can harm athletes in the long term. Photo by Jacob Mitchell

The NFL had this issue crop up previously. In 2003, in light of historically low minority representation, the league adopted a proposal known as the Rooney Rule. This rule allows for NFL teams to develop minority coaches, which again expanded in 2019 to apply to management candidates as well. With the Rooney Rule, teams become incentivized to hire diverse candidates, as well as to train them in the team’s system. If a minority candidate gets hired from another team, the team losing the candidate receives compensation, which inspires more teams to build better diversity hiring practices. While the Rooney Rule improved diversity in the NFL on paper, it only did so for a short while. Now, with a strong cultural shift impacting the NFL more than ever, hiring practices, along with other issues, have become far more visible than others.

Diverse hiring issues occur in places besides the NFL. According to ESPN, Division I college football received a B- grade for hiring racially diverse candidates, and a full F grade on gender diversity. The article continues, saying “as in previous years, white men continue to dominate leadership positions at these institutions of higher education. Division I FBS schools scored a combined D+, up from a D in the 2019 report card. While it is important to note the progress, it does not diminish the fact that of all the 2020 Racial and Gender Report Cards (including MLB, NBA, WNBA, NFL and MLS), the FBS schools' combined D+ grade was by far the worst.” This means that college sports, football especially, has a major issue when it comes to hiring practices.

These protocols shape up to harm athletes, depriving them of needed representation at crucial points in their lives. It has been shown that having representation in a young adult’s life leads to better outcomes for them later on, which means representation in sport and education plays a major role in the lives of student athletes.