Dive Brief:
- Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a subpoena to the National Football League Wednesday over concerns that the league’s inclusive hiring practices and its “Rooney Rule” violate Florida laws, according to a Wednesday letter.
- The letter and subpoena follow an initial inquiry from Florida’s AG to the NFL about the league’s DEI practices in late March, where Uthmeier said the Rooney Rule and the league’s diversity initiatives “brazenly” violate Florida law. Uthmeier’s May 13 letter said the NFL’s response raised new concerns over violations of state law.
- The NFL’s Rooney Rule was established in 2003, and initially required teams to interview at least one diverse candidate before hiring a head coach. The rule and hiring practices were expanded to include more positions and interview requirements over time.
Dive Insight:
Uthmeier is not the first to challenge the NFL over the Rooney Rule. America First Legal — co-founded by Stephen Miller, who now serves as assistant to the president, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser — filed a federal civil rights complaint against the league in 2024 against the league’s diverse hiring policies.
The Rooney Rule currently requires NFL teams to interview at least two external candidates who are either women or people of color for any open head coach, general manager or coordinator positions. Teams are required to interview at least one woman or person of color for open quarterback coach or senior level executive positions.
In a May 1 response to Uthmeier, the NFL’s General Counsel Ted Ullyot said the Rooney Rule complies with both Florida and federal law because it does not place any limits on the number of candidates a team can consider for any position and leaves teams “free to interview as many candidates as they choose.” Ullyot said violation of Florida’s Civil Rights Act requires “an adverse employment action.”
“The Rooney Rule does not impose any hiring quotas or mandates, nor does it even limit who may be interviewed,” Ullyot wrote in the letter, published on social media platform X by Fox News writer Armando Salguero. “Most importantly, it does not license clubs to consider race or sex in making hiring decisions, consistent with NFL policy and applicable law.”
However, Uthmeier’s response this week said the state is “not convinced.” Additionally, despite Ullyot’s claim that the rule does not license teams to “consider race or sex,” Florida’s AG cited a former version of the Rooney Rule webpage that said the rule “aims to increase the number of minorities hired in head coach, general manager, and executive positions.”
Uthmeier noted that the NFL updated its Rooney Rule and Inclusive hiring webpages following Florida’s letter in March. The Florida AG said that though the state appreciates the league’s “efforts in updating the NFL’s website to strike many references to [the league’s] unlawful ‘inclusive hiring’ policies, these updates raise new concerns under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
Uthmeier said the league has touted its commitments to diverse candidates, mandating employment of a diverse offensive assistant, providing female and minority candidates with leadership development and working to increase the number of hired minorities for years. Now the NFL has altered its public representation of those claims and said they did not accurately reflect actual policies, according to Florida’s AG.
“If all along, the NFL’s representations that its employment policies (i) are designed for diverse candidates, (ii) require hiring diverse candidates, and (iii) are intended to increase the hiring of diverse candidates did not ‘accurately reflect’ the NFL’s actual policies, that would violate Florida law,” Uthmeier wrote in his May 13 letter to the league. “All in all, the Rooney Rule and the NFL’s related ‘inclusive hiring’ policies—and the NFL’s representations about those policies—continue to raise significant concerns under Florida law.”
