NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during an official visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on December 2, 2024. (DOD photo by Ricardo J. Reyes)
When the rest of America has rejected DEI and all that comes with it, and corporations and governments are pulling back from it, Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, is digging in his heels to protect it. It’s long past time for the NFL to dump the wide of the mark Goodell and find a new commissioner. Andrew Beaton reports in The Wall Street Journal:
In 2020, as protests over racial inequities and police brutality swept across the country, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell ordered the league to embark on an all-out blitz in support of social-justice issues.
“End Racism” was stenciled into the back of end zones. A song known as the Black national anthem was played before games. The league committed hundreds of millions of dollars to back equality initiatives.
But five years later, as the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off in Sunday’s Super Bowl, the NFL finds itself in a very different position. Even as the rest of America is running away from diversity efforts, America’s most popular sport is digging in.
Newly re-elected President Trump, who plans to attend Sunday’s game, has quickly moved to unravel diversity, equity and inclusion plans in the federal government. Fortune 500 companies have taken steps to roll back their own diversity practices. Firms that haven’t followed suit have faced criticism from activists and agitators.
At the same time, the NFL has come under fire over accusations that its own diversity practices aren’t tough enough. The league is coming off a hiring cycle that raised questions about whether policies designed to ensure a diverse pool of candidates gets considered for jobs such as head coach are actually working.
In the new national reckoning over DEI, the NFL is somehow feeling the squeeze from both sides.
Unlike many business leaders, though, Goodell wasn’t shy this week about taking a clear stance on the issue—even if it’s one that won’t find favor among many of the 100 million viewers who tune in for the Super Bowl. He firmly stood by the NFL’s diversity initiatives and said they won’t change just because the political climate has shifted, adding that they’re both positive for the league and a “reflection of our fan base and our communities and our players.”
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League, and we’re going to continue to do those efforts,” Goodell said. “We’re not in this because it’s a trend to get into it or a trend to get out of it.”
That attitude, people familiar with the matter say, is shared by NFL owners, who have pushed for the league to stick with its policies—even though many of them have publicly supported Trump. They point out that the league has never had hiring quotas, but has stuck by the idea that the NFL is at its best when its teams select from a wide array of candidates.
Read more here.
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