NFL Insitutes Change to 'Rooney Rule' for Hiring

May 29, 2020

Last week, the NFL announced that it will expand the Rooney Rule, which will now require clubs to increase the number of interviews for minority candidates across all vacant coaching positions.

The owners approved several new measures that they hope will improve what they acknowledge has become an unacceptable record of minority hiring in positions of team leadership. Among them:

• Teams will now be required to interview at least two candidates from outside their organization for any vacant head-coaching job and at least one minority candidate from outside their organization for any vacant offensive, defensive or special-teams coordinator job.
• The Rooney Rule was expanded to apply to a number of executive positions. Teams and the league office are now required to interview "minorities and/or female applicants" for positions such as team president and "senior executives in communications, finance, human resources, legal, football operations, sales, marketing, sponsorship, information technology and security positions."
• Each of the 32 NFL teams will establish a minority coaching fellowship program. The coaching fellowships are to be full-time positions, one or two years in length, to "provide NFL Legends, minority and female participants with hands-on training in NFL coaching." The idea is to establish a larger pool of qualified candidates in the pipeline from which head-coaching candidates are ultimately drawn.

According to a source, the NFL's workplace diversity committee decided this offseason that it needed to propose "something bold" to address the ongoing issue, hence the now-tabled proposal to award draft picks as incentive for minority hiring. The league hopes the changes instituted last Tuesday lead to longer-term solutions.

"We believe these new policies demonstrate the NFL Owners' commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in the NFL," Steelers owner and committee chairman Art Rooney II said in the league's news release. "The development of young coaches and young executives is a key to our future. These steps will assure coaching and football personnel are afforded a fair and equitable opportunity to advance throughout our football operations."

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