MAR. 26-- With the recent hiring of Jon Gruden as their new head coach, the Oakland Raiders organization came under fire over speculation that they did not comply with the Rooney Rule, bringing to light the debate and struggle over diversity in the NFL. The Rooney Rule is a policy spearheaded by Pittsburgh Steelers’ chairman Dan Rooney. Implemented in 2003, the rule states that when a head coaching or senior management position is vacated, one minority candidate must be interviewed for the position. The push to use the rule to increase diversity in the NFL was sparked by the firing of two African American coaches, Tony Dungy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings. The loss of Green and  Dungy meant that there was only one minority head coach in the NFL.

     In September of 2002, lawyers Johnnie Cochran Jr, best known as the defense attorney in the O.J. Simpson trial, and his colleague, Cyrus Mehri released a report titled,  “Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities.” The report brought to light the mistreatment of African American within the league. The lawyers employed the help of the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Janice Madden to gather and analyze data. The report aimed to put pressure on the league offices to create change. The data presented, as of 2002, included:

• Roughly 70% of players in the NFL are African American

• From 1920 to 2002, 6 out of 400 or 1.5% of coaches hired were African American

• 2 of the last 22 coaches hired were African American

• Black coaches average 1.1 more wins than white coaches

• Black coaches made the playoffs 67% of the time while white coaches lead teams to the playoffs 39% of the time

• Terminated black coaches average 1.3 more wins in their final season than white coaches

• Black coaches inherited teams with an average of 7.4 wins per season and increased the average to 9.1

     The report continues with the details of specific African American careers in the NFL and the barriers these individuals faced. The list is topped by Sherman Lewis who coached in the NFL for 14 years, 10 years as an offensive coordinator. He earned four Super Bowl rings but was never given the chance to interview for a head coaching position. Similar stories include Marvin Lewis, Emmitt Thomas, Art Shell and more.

     While the goal of the Rooney Rule is relatively undisputed, its effectiveness and necessity in the league has been called into question. Proponents of the Rooney Rule cite the hiring of Mike Tomlin as a success of the policy. Tomlin was hired by the Steelers in 2007. It is his personal belief that he has the Rooney Rule to thank for the acquisition of his position. There are two opposing views on this hiring. Art Shell stated, "Mike Tomlin wouldn't have gotten this opportunity without this rule. He never would have sat down with Dan Rooney." The alternative viewpoint claims that the Rooney Rule had nothing to do with the hiring of Mike Tomlin due to the fact that the Steelers had already interviewed Ron Rivera who would have qualified as the minority interview necessary. The only proven violation of the Rooney Rule occurred in 2003 when the Detroit Lions fired Marty Mornhinweg and hired Steve Mariucci without interviewing a minority candidate. The team was charged with a $200,000 fine as a result of its transgressions.

     One of the most curious aspects of the Rooney Rule is that it can not be found in the NFL’s constitution or bylaws. It appears to be a rule supported and accepted by the commissioner and the league offices without legal documentation connected back to the NFL. When the Raiders were under investigation in 2018 for their compliance with the Rooney Rule, the institution that was called upon to determine their fate was the Fritz Pollard Alliance. The FPA was formed after the release of the report discussed above. Thus far, this institution has been the sole power in the enforcement of the Rooney Rule. There is one piece of legal documentation available from the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy that states the owners of the NFL “strongly agreed on the principle that any club seeking to hire a head coach will interview one or more minority applicants for that position” and gave the NFL commissioner the power to enforce the rule at his discretion. Another interesting note from the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is that at the onset of the rule, the Fritz Pollard Alliance suggested to the NFL that they incentivize the Rooney Rule by offering an additional draft pick to teams that have hired African Americans for head coaching positions.

     Without a written rule it is unclear what constitutes a “minority candidate” in the context of the Rooney Rule. The report released by Cochran and Mehri only provides data for Caucasians and African Americans in the NFL. As of 2016 the NFL reported the presence of 3% non-white, non-black players in the league. With the hiring of Jennifer Welter as the Arizona Cardinals inside linebackers coach followed by Katie Sowers of the San Francisco 49ers and Kathryn Smith of the Buffalo Bills, the question has been raised as to whether or not females should be included in the definition of a minority in the Rooney Rule. I reached out to Amy Trask, former CEO of the Oakland Raiders and current CBS Analyst and she provided her thoughts on the matter of female involvement in the Rooney Rule. She stated, “If a business doesn’t hire without regard to race, gender, ethnicity, religion and other individualities that have no bearing on whether one can do a job, it deserves to fail.” She went on to praise her former boss in saying that “[Al Davis] didn’t need a rule to do that.” The most recent development in this sphere is that Roger Goodell announced in 2016 at the NFL’s first “Women’s Summit” that they would be developing a Rooney Rule to include women that required an interview of a female for all senior executive positions in the league. The NFL later clarified that the updated version of the Rooney Rule only applied to positions in the league offices, not the individual teams.

     The question remains, what will be the impact of the Rooney Rule going forward both inside and outside of the sports world? In March of 2017, the U.S. Senate passed a vote to adopt a version of the Rooney Rule in which they require at least one minority candidate to be interviewed for senior positions and recently legal scholars have advocated for extending the Rooney Rule to College Football where similar numbers to the NFL in 2002 indicate the need for change. Some suggest a stronger Rooney Rule, others view it unnecessary. Dan Rooney himself may have offered the most optimistic view of the issue. At the implementation of the rule he stated, "I really feel and hope that we will not need a Rooney Rule very long." Is 15 years too long or not long enough?

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Sources: 

Stites, Adam. “What Is the NFL's Rooney Rule?” SBNation.com, SBNation.com, 6 Jan. 2018, www.sbnation.com/2018/1/6/16856550/rooney-rule-nfl-explained-how-it-works-coaches.

Wesseling, Chris. “Fritz Pollard Alliance Says Raiders Fulfilled Rooney Rule.” NFL.com, www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000902952/article/fritz-pollard-alliance-says-raiders-fulfilled-rooney-rule.

“Steelers Hire Tomlin.” ESPN, 23 Jan. 2007, www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=2738834.

Garber, Greg. “Thanks to Rooney Rule, Doors Open.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 9 Feb. 2007, www.espn.com/nfl/playoffs06/news/story?id=2750645%5C.

“NFL Needs Stronger Rooney Rule.” FOX Sports, 29 Jan. 2013, www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/nfl-must-bolster-rooney-rule-after-15-head-coaches-and-gms-are-hired-and-none-are-minority-012913.

Proxmire, Douglas. “Coaching Diversity: The Rooney Rule, Its Application and Ideas for Expansion.” Dec. 2008.

Cochran, Johnnie. “‘Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities.’” Sept. 2002.

Gaines, Cork. “Number of Minority Coaches in the NFL Is up to an All Time High.” Business Insider, 13 Dec. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/nfl-black-head-coaches-rooney-rule-2017-12.

Reid, J. “Rethinking The NFL's Rooney Rule For More Diversity At The Top.”FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 20 May 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/rethinking-the-nfls-rooney-rule-for-more-diversity-at-the-top

Reid, J. “It's Time for the NFL to Take the Rooney Rule Seriously or Get Rid of It.” The Undefeated, 11 Jan. 2018, theundefeated.com/features/its-time-for-the-nfl-to-take-the-rooney-rule-seriously-or-get-rid-of-it/.
Barnett, Zach. “Tony Dungy Explains the Unintended Benefit of the Rooney Rule.”FootballScoop, 19 Dec. 2016, footballscoop.com/news/tony-dungy-explains-unintended-benefit-rooney-rule/.