The Florida GOP-controlled Legislature earlier this month approved legislation that would ban local governments from funding, promoting, or taking official actions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Now the attorney general of Florida wants one of the biggest and most popular corporations in the country, the National Football League, to stop implementing what he calls race-based hiring policies, because he says it violates Florida’s Civil Rights Act.
Uthmeier contacted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Wednesday to inform him that the “Rooney Rule,” established more than 20 years ago for the league to combat the historically low number of minorities in head coaching position, is illegal under Florida law.
The rule requires NFL teams to interview at least two minority candidates for vacant head coach, GM, and coordinator position. One minority candidate is required for the QB coach position. The rule was expanded in 2022 to include women.
“These methods of directing the selection and training of certain executives, coaches, and other employees based on skin color and sex is discriminatory and violates Florida law,” Uthmeier writes in a letter sent to Goodell.
The AG goes on to write that the Florida Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from “fail[ing] or refus[ing] to hire any individual”; “limit[ing], segregate[ing], or classify[ing] employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities”; and “discriminat[ing] against any individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment,” because of the “individual’s race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, national origin, age, handicap, or marital status.”
“The Rooney Rule and its offshoots are illegal in Florida,” he added. “Therefore, please confirm no later than May 1, 2026, that the NFL will no longer enforce the Rooney Rule or any variation or extension thereof — which requires consideration of race, sex, or any other prohibited classification — on teams in Florida. Failure to provide such confirmation may result in a civil rights enforcement action.”
This is not the first time conservatives have accused the NFL of engaging in racial discrimination. A 2025 essay by Hans A. von Spakovsky and Sarah Parshall Perry on the Heritage Foundation’s website alleges that the “NFL also violates federal civil rights laws prohibiting racial discrimination in hiring. It has for years followed a discriminatory hiring policy called the Rooney Rule, named after Dan Rooney, former owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, a supporter of former President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act, and an outspoken proponent of racially discriminatory hiring practices at the NFL.”
Uhtmeier has been Florida’s attorney general for a little more than a year, having been appointed early in 2025 to replace Ashley Moody, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the U.S. Senate to replace Marco Rubio. He’s been adroit at getting into news headlines as he prepares to face voters for the first time in his career later this year.
On the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday this year, he declared in an advisory legal opinion that more than 80 state laws aimed at protecting minority employees and businesses are no longer valid. That prompted Black Democratic lawmakers in the Capitol to hold a press conference three days later, denouncing his efforts.
The Phoenix reached out to the NFL for comment, but league officials did not immediately respond.
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