On September 21, Temple University hosted a panel entitled “Rooney Rule Revisited: Race and Diversity in Sports and Corporate America,” an event to discuss the Rooney Rule in the NFL and DEI in business more generally. The “Rooney Rule” is the NFL policy requiring teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operations roles. The panelists were N. Jeremi Duru, a sports law expert at American University’s Washington College of Law and former Beasley School of Law professor, and Jim Rooney, an owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and son of the Rooney Rule’s originator Dan Rooney. Professor Ken Jacobsen arranged to co-sponsor the program on behalf of the Beasley School of Law.
Instituted in 2003, the Rooney Rule was originally intended to address the lack of diversity in the coaching staff of NFL teams. The problem? In 2003, out of 32 NFL teams, there were only three head coaches of color in the NFL. Today, nearly 20 years later, though 71% of players in the NFL are of color, there are still only four head coaches of color.
To understand the barriers to progress, it may help to understand the often ugly history of the NFL with respect to race. The NFL began in 1920 and had its first head coach of color, “Fritz” Pollard, in 1921. Less than a decade later, however, there were no more black coaches or players in the NFL. While black players were allowed back in the league in the 1940s, they were prohibited from playing certain key positions like quarterback. It wasn’t until 1989, with 70% of players in the league being people of color, that the NFL had its first black head coach in the modern era.
But the Rooney Rule emerged in response to specific events in the 2001-2002 season. In 2001, there were just three black coaches to start the season, and two of them were let go, leaving the league with just one head coach of color. A study commissioned by civil rights lawyers Johnnie Cochran and Cyrus Mehri at the time showed that black coaches were more likely to be fired, though they were actually outperforming white coaches. The Rooney Rule was meant to address the intractable problem of fostering coaching diversity.
While the Steelers organization has some track record in racial progress—they currently have the longest serving coach of color, Mike Tomlin, and they hired Brian Flores as an assistant coach after he filed suit for racial discrimination against the NFL under the Rooney Rule—Rooney noted that much still needs to be done to achieve equity in the NFL. He highlighted five areas where the NFL—and any organization seeking improvements in DEI initiatives—can improve to achieve success.
- The hiring process must be open and accessible.
- While there is a preference for “carrots over sticks,” there must be an enforcement mechanism for those who don’t follow the rules, for example by conducting sham interviewers just to comply with the letter of the law.
- Teams must make it clear that DEI is a priority by holding their employees accountable for not living up to the organization’s goals.
- Successful efforts to improve DEI require a sincere commitment to change.
- Teams must make clear that they expect to effectuate change and that they are in this for the long-haul—5, 10, 15 years down the line.
While there was some success at integration in the years following the implementation of the Rooney Rule, progress soon slowed. There was no enforcement mechanism, and teams were insincere in their attempts to address the situation.
So what is the NFL doing to address the issue now? For starters, they have begun hosting a kind of “incubator” exploring the barriers to entry for coaches and other staff members of color. What started as a one-off has become an annual event, where stakeholders can speak directly to owners and general managers.
What’s really needed now, according to both Duru and Rooney, is for concerted action from both sponsors and players. The panelists noted, for example, that The Washington Commanders didn’t change their previous offensive team name until FedEx, who sponsored their arena, spoke up and demanded a change. Though influencing change–creating something more effective than the Rooney Rule—will certainly be hard, both Rooney and Duru see a path forward if players at the grassroots level and sponsors come together to make their voices heard.
Video of the full panel can be found here.
Professor N. Jeremi Duru teaches sports law, civil procedure, and employment discrimination at American University’s Washington School of Law and is the author of “Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL.”
Jim Rooney is an owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and author of “A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney’s Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule.”