MIAMI — The state of Florida this week advanced its punitive bullying of the NFL by socking it with an ”investigative subpoena.” Targeted is the league’s Rooney Rule meant to increase fair hiring opportunities for minority coaching candidates — not force any hiring, but simply to encourage that the door is open to all. In larger play, of course, is the entire concept of DEI initiatives under threat from federal pressure and state legislation.

Most may know DEI stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Apparently the United States or at least its current government isn’t for that anymore?

It’s plain why Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is pushing this. His boss is Gov. Ron DeSantis, now a puppet of anti-DEI president Donald Trump (even though he was a critic when he ran against him in 2024). And Florida is one of only two states with three NFL teams (the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars), so there is much attention to be had with this.

Plus, evidently there is no crime or corruption problem in Florida, so Uthmeier has lots of free time to meddle in how sports leagues dare align on the side of equal opportunity.

Fact: The 2026 NFL season will begin with 10 new head coaches, a record number. The minority hires among those 10? Tennessee hired Lebanese-American Robert Saleh. Zero Black coaches were hired.

This only champions the continuing need for the Rooney Rule.

When Uthmeier began his attack in March with a “warning letter,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stood strong, saying, “One thing that doesn’t change is our values, and we believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League. We are well aware of the laws and where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those.”

Yet since March, there are signs the NFL might be caving by degrees to the state’s pressure.

The NFL’s Rooney Rule description on its website previously stated the policy aims to “increase the number of minorities hired” in leadership positions and said that diversity “enriches the game and creates a more effective, quality organization.”

The new, more vague description says the Rooney Rule is designed “to expand opportunity” and is meant to assure qualified candidates “from a wide range of backgrounds.”

The change eliminating the word “minorities,” a change no doubt penned by league attorneys, is a legal hedge meant to placate or somewhat disarm Uthmeier.

The NFL also had a program to increase minority representation in assistant coaching ranks, one started in 2022 after former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores sued the league. It came out this week that the league quietly ended that last winter. Uthmeier has wrongly taken “credit” for that ... although it might be true he saw that as a weakness in the league that led to his March letter threatening further action.

Also indicative of that apparent weakness: In May 2025 the NFL canceled its “coaching accelerator” program for minority candidates ... then relaunched it this March but making it now open to candidates of all backgrounds rather than only those in a racial or gender minority.

This of course is much bigger than sports, bigger than State of Florida v. NFL.

It is about the federal government and some states working to dismantle or eliminate DEI programs entirely, to demonize the once-noble idea of “inclusive hiring“ policies.

The website DEI.watch is tracking what has become something of an ideological civil war. It lists 76 major retail companies that have “dismantled” DEI programs, and 134 it lists as “committed to them." (The committed includes the NFL, but let’s see if that continues.)

The companies listed as anti-DEI includes Walmart, Ford, Target, McDonald’s, Amazon, Google, Boeing, and Disney.

Pro-DEI companies include Allstate, Capital One, American Express, Apple, Chevron, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Microsoft, Visa, State Farm and Netflix.

This all accelerated with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in college admissions. It left lots of retail business running scared. It has also caused myriad colleges and universities to eliminate or lessen their DEI programs, including Ohio State, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Harvard and many others.

The U.S. Department of Education in a website headline Thursday called the elimination of DEI programs “victories for higher education.” We’ll agree to disagree on that. And by “we” perhaps I’d include many of the Americans who have Trump’s approval rating tanking at about 36% based on most recent national polls.

My fundamental problem with eliminating DEI programs is that the backward movement conveys the absurdly naive notion that all is good in America, that racism and prejudice have been officially eliminated. That minorities now have equal opportunity. If only.

The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery on Dec. 6, 1865. The landmark Civil Rights Act became law on July 2, 1964. Today, DEI policies fighting to remain in existence are an acknowledgment the work for actual equality for all is not finished. It is an ideal not yet attained. Abolishing DEI only assures that work will go on longer.

Fathom the timeline in historical scope. Slavery was abolished around 160 years ago and civil rights became law about 60 years ago. That’s hardly ancient history in a country about to celebrate its 250th birthday.

For perspective, what is now Major League Baseball started only a few years after slavery ended. The Miami Dolphins’ first season was only two years after President Lyndon Johnson’s signature made racial equality (theoretically) the law of the land. One of my own earliest but indelible memories as a child was seeing separate water fountains marked “Colored” and “White” in a Winn-Dixie grocery store.

Sports and sports fandom can give us a misleading idea of race and equality. Almost 70% of NFL players are Black. The number in the NBA is 78%. Millionaires. Superstars. Idolized. But even Black athletes whose athleticism gifted them an extremely exclusive express lane in life can tell you stories about growing up a minority in America, or tales their parents or grandparents have told.

We have come a long way toward equality, for sure. But let’s not pretend — as the simple notion of “inclusive hiring” becomes a controversy — that we have arrived at where we ought to be.

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