The National Football League has long been scrutinized for its lack of Black head coaches, and President Joe Biden called attention to this on Sunday during the Super Bowl, saying that having diverse coaches in the league is a requirement of 'generic decency.'
The lack of Black head coaches in the NFL has long been discussed, and policies have been put in place in an effort to address the issue, like the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least two ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs.
However, the rule does not appear to be making a difference as of late, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell calling for the league to do better.
This point was echoed by President Biden in an interview with NBC News Sunday when he said, "They haven't lived up to what they committed to and lived up to being open about hiring more minorities to run teams."
The president continued talking about the diversity seen in players in the league and how that is not reflected in head coaching positions.
"The whole idea that a league that is made up of so many athletes of color, as well as so diverse, that there's not enough African American qualified coaches 'to manage these NFL teams,' it just seems to me that it's a standard that they'd want to live up to," Biden said. "It's not a requirement of law, but it's a requirement, I think, of just some generic decency."
Look directly at the diversity among players in the league; on active rosters last season, 71% identified as people of color, with around 25% being white and 4% being unidentified, NBC News reported.
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Looking at the 32 head coaching jobs in the NFL, only three of the positions were held by people of color.
This is something that former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores is suing the NFL over. His lawsuit, filed last month, alleges that he was racially discriminated against, being interviewed for a job only because he was Black, as to satisfy the Rooney Rule, not because he was an actual candidate.
Former Indianapolis Colts and Hall of Fame Coach Tony Dungy gave his thoughts on Flores earlier this month, saying that "I think the NFL, we have to realize that we have a problem. This could be just the tip of the iceberg."
"We've got to do a better job, all the way around. You know we've had three hiring cycles now, and one black coach [hired]," Dungy said. "17 jobs and one African American."
Goodell also was shocked at the allegations made in Flores' lawsuit, claiming that the issue of racism is being taken very seriously.
"We won't tolerate racism. We won't tolerate discrimination," Goodell said. "I found all of the allegations, whether they were based on racism or discrimination or the integrity of our game, all of those to me were very disturbing. They are very serious matters to us on all levels, and we need to make sure we get to the bottom of all of them."
As for the president, Biden thinks that the NFL 'should be held to a reasonable standard' regarding diversity.
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