Journal
Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law
Volume
16
First Page
181
Last Page
233
Abstract
In 2003, the National Football League (NFL), which had long struggled with racial inequity both on and off the field, implemented a policy known as the Rooney Rule, requiring that any league club searching for a head coach interview at least one person of color before making a hire. In the over two decades since, employers of all sorts seeking to increase opportunities for people of color and women have adopted a form of the Rule. Indeed, it has gained traction from coast to coast. Hundreds of American employers utilize the Rooney Rule or a policy derived therefrom. In the wake, however, of the United States Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) invalidating affirmative action admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the Rooney Rule’s legal validity has come into question. If the Rooney Rule is deemed unlawful, the consequences would be substantial. It would prompt scores of employers to abandon their Rooney Rule analogs, likely damaging their efforts to ensure equitable employment opportunity in their organizations. This paper explores the NFL’s history of racial inequity, its implementation of the Rooney Rule as a means of increasing racial equity, the Rule’s impact, and the post-SFFA attacks that threaten its existence, concluding that the Rooney Rule was designed to, and likely will, survive the anti-affirmative action legal challenges it faces.
Repository Citation
N. J. Duru,
Forward Progress: The Rooney Rule and Its Post-SFFA Relevance,
16
Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L.
181
(2025).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/2320
Included in
Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons