US Supreme Court won't intervene in Brian Flores' discrimination lawsuit against NFL

Emily Leiker, Star Tribune on May 26, 2026

Published in Football

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MINNEAPOLIS — Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ discrimination lawsuit against the NFL will proceed in federal court after the U.S. Supreme Court turned away a request for review by the league of a lower court’s ruling Tuesday.

The NFL requested a review of the August 2025 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Flores’ case should be tried in open court rather than through the league’s arbitration system.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the lone dissenter of the high court’s decision not to review the ruling.

The appellate court ruling stemmed from an initial decision in 2023 by Valerie Caproni, a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York, to send parts of the case to open court and others to arbitration. In February, Caproni amended her ruling to align with the appellate court and send the entire case to open court.

First filed in February 2022, Flores’ lawsuit alleges systemic racial discrimination in the NFL’s hiring practices, particularly for head coaches and general managers. Flores, who is Black, was fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins after three seasons and a 24-25 record overall, despite back-to-back winning records in 2020 and 2021.

The case has been stayed throughout various appeal processes, but the stay was lifted as part of Caproni’s February ruling and is expected to proceed now with the Supreme Court denying a review.

The case includes the NFL and six specifically named teams: the Dolphins, Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, New York Giants, Tennessee Titans and Arizona Cardinals.

NFL coaches Ray Horton and Steve Wilks joined Flores as plaintiffs in the case after its initial filing. Horton was a defensive coordinator for both the Titans (2014-15) and Cardinals (2011-12); Wilks was the head coach of the Cardinals in 2018.

The NFL has argued that the league’s constitution and coaches employment contracts should be enough to compel arbitration of the case, as the former grants Commissioner Roger Goodell the power to arbitrate disputes among the league’s 32 teams and all coaches.

But courts have sided with Flores and the plaintiffs. In February, Caproni called the league’s unilateral control of dispute resolution a “fatal flaw” when she amended her previous ruling, while appellate court judge José A. Cabranes said the NFL’s arbitration rules violate the Federal Arbitration Act.

In its petition to the Supreme Court for review, the defendants argued that the appellate court’s ruling was “unprecedented” and questioned whether a sports commissioner’s position as lead arbitrator would truly make a league’s arbitration process unenforceable under the act.

“We are pleased that the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal,” said Flores’ attorneys Douglas Wigdor and David Gottlieb in a written statement shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune on Tuesday. “The NFL must now accept that its commissioner cannot be the arbitrator over discrimination claims against the league and its teams. We look forward to litigating these claims in court.”

Last week, a new filing in the case revealed that Flores and his lawyers had subpoenaed 25 NFL teams not directly named in the lawsuit “seeking wide-ranging information related to distinct hiring and employment practices of the League and 31 different employer-clubs across an over 24-year period, as well as information about any claims of discrimination at those distinct entities, regardless of its relation to the allegations in the operative Complaint.”

They also requested 1,061 documents and interrogatories as part of their initial discovery request. The NFL and its lawyers called that “punishingly overbroad” within that new filing, which was a letter to Caproni about the briefing schedule for the case.

A third amended complaint in the case was filed by Flores’ team May 20. The case will be tried in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Caproni. The start date is undetermined.

Flores is entering his fourth season on Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell’s staff. He signed a contract extension that is believed to have come with a raise after extended negotiations in January.

Flores has interviewed for a handful of head coaching roles while on the Vikings’ staff, including the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens openings this offseason. He has said it would take the “right situation” to leave Minnesota.