Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Wednesday that while he appreciates how the National Football League had “capitulated” on some of its “discriminatory hiring quotas,” its hiring practices still violate Florida law and that he will now issue an investigative subpoena to the league.
Uthmeier initially threatened civil action against the NFL in March over its “Rooney Rule,” a decades-long league initiative established to combat the historically low number of minorities hired to head coaching positions.
The AG said that policy violates Florida’s Civil Rights Act, which bans employers from discriminating against “any individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.”
The Rooney Rule requires teams to interview at least two minority candidates for head coach, general manager, and coordinator positions. At least one minority candidate must be interviewed for quarterback coach and senior executive positions.
The NFL responded to Uthmeier by making some changes on its website. According to ESPN reporter Kalyn Kahler, those changes include adding a sentence that final hiring decisions remain with each club.
Another change was removing a sentence that the Rooney Rule “aims to increase the number of minorities hired” to say the rule “expands the pool of candidates considered” and added that the candidates must be “qualified.”
“Unfortunately, neither your letter nor the changes to your website assuage our concerns over the NFL’s violations of Florida law. In fact, they raise new ones,” Uthmeier wrote in a letter to Ted Ullyot, executive vice president and general counsel to the NFL.
The letter continues to raise objections to the rule, as well as other mandated NFL hiring programs, such as that teams “must” hire a female or minority coach as an offensive assistant.
“The NFL now contends — apparently in response to our letter — that the NFL has ‘sunset’ this mandate,” he writes. “Given the NFL’s history of open discrimination, however, we are skeptical that the mandate is no longer in place. And like the Rooney Rule, it violates Florida law.”
The subpoena issued by Uthmeier informs the NFL that it is “COMMANDED” to appear at the Department of Legal Affairs, Office of the Attorney General, Office of Civil Rights, in Tallahassee on June 12 at 9 a.m. The subpoena compels the NFL to produce extensive records dating to 2020, and earlier for some items.
It’s not certain whether the NFL will respond. Speaking in Phoenix in late March, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he had no intention of ending the Rooney Rule, despite Uthmeier’s threat. “The Rooney Rule has been around a long time,” Goodell, said, according to the Associated Press. “We’ve evolved it, changed it. We’ll continue to do that.”
Uthmeier’s attack on the rule isn’t the first time he’s gone after hiring practices or state laws that he says are unconstitutional because they promote “racial discrimination on its face.”
In January, he issued an advisory legal opinion declaring that more than 80 state laws aimed at protecting minority employees and businesses were no longer valid, leading to a group of Black Democratic lawmakers to denounce him for unilaterally deciding not to follow state laws.
Uthmeier, 38, was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February 2025 to replace Ashley Moody as attorney general. He is now running for election for the first time in his career this year. Former Miami-Dade County state lawmaker José Javier Rodríguez is expected to be his Democratic opponent in November.
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