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The attorneys general from New York and California are bearing down on the National Football League with an investigation into alleged workplace discrimination in the league’s corporate offices.
In recent years, legal issues have abounded for the NFL. Individual teams have faced allegations of workplace misconduct and discrimination, as well as the league itself. But as The Associated Press describes, the joint investigation announced Thursday will focus on the NFL’s offices in California and New York.
New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, both Democrats, say they are not targeting any of the league’s 32 teams that take up so much of the country’s cultural space. Instead, their probe is focused on the league itself, specifically its corporate offices in New York and California.
The investigation is in response to what Bonta called a “robust public record” that points to a “disturbing and concerning set of allegations about gender and racial discrimination in the NFL.” That includes lawsuits filed by former employees, congressional hearings last year into the workplace practices of the Washington Commanders and a 2022 New York Times article detailing allegations of gender discrimination by more than 30 former female NFL employees.
The league said it would cooperate with the probe and called the allegations “entirely inconsistent with the NFL’s values and practices.”
Yeah. Sure.
The investigation follows through on warnings that James and five other state AGs laid out last year in a letter to the NFL expressing concern over allegations of discrimination and workplace misconduct toward women in the NFL’s offices. And the investigation will look to turn over stones with regard to alleged racial discrimination in the league, as well.
I’ve previously covered some of the allegations at the heart of this new probe for The ReidOut Blog. For example, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores filed a discrimination lawsuit against the NFL over its hiring practices. And a lawsuit filed by Karl Racine, then the District of Columbia attorney general, claims the NFL and one of its teams, the Washington Commanders, colluded to mislead the public about the findings of an NFL-led toxic workplace investigation into the team. (The league has faulted both lawsuits as being without merit.)
This new probe certainly has the potential to unearth some unflattering things about the NFL. Even when the league investigates itself — as was the case when it unearthed racist, homophobic and misogynistic emails sent by former head coach Jon Gruden — the results can still leave a blemish.
The NFL will obviously have less control over this investigation, leaving open the possibility the public sees some things that league officials would prefer to stay hidden.