Brian Flores’s Discrimination Case Against the N.F.L. Can Move to Court

Flores claimed that the head coach searches led by the Giants in 2022 and Broncos in 2019 were “shams” because team executives had already chosen the candidates they would hire — Brian Daboll and Vic Fangio, whom Denver fired after three seasons — and spoke to Flores only to comply with league rules requiring teams to interview candidates of color.

Flores added the Texans to his lawsuit last April, claiming that the team retaliated against him for filing the lawsuit by removing him from consideration for their open head coach position last year. The Texans job was filled by Lovie Smith, a Black coach, who had been the team’s defensive coordinator. He was fired after one year, becoming the second consecutive Black coach the team employed for just a single season.

The Giants declined to comment on the judge’s ruling Wednesday, but the team had previously called Flores’s claims “disturbing and simply false.” The Broncos and Texans did not respond to requests for comment.

In February 2022, just 18 days after he filed suit against the league, Flores was hired as a senior defensive assistant by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last month, he was hired as defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings.

There are currently six head coaches of color in the league: Mike Tomlin of the Steelers; Todd Bowles of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; DeMeco Ryans of the Texans; Mike McDaniel of the Dolphins; Robert Saleh of the Jets; and Ron Rivera of the Washington Commanders. The number has not increased since last season. Ryans, who replaced Smith in Houston, was the only Black coach hired for any of the five open positions this winter.

The league has generally been successful at steering legal challenges into arbitration — where proceedings are private — because of the broad jurisdiction in the terms of employment for all players, coaches and other league personnel. But the league has settled cases in arbitration, including multimillion dollar payments to the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his former teammate Eric Reid, Black players who filed a grievance claiming that they were blackballed because they knelt during the playing of the national anthem to protest racist policing.

Last year, a state court judge in Nevada ruled that the N.F.L. could not compel the former Raiders Coach Jon Gruden into arbitration. Gruden had accused the league of leaking emails in which he shared racist, misogynist and homophobic comments, which led to his being fired by the team. In January, the Nevada State Supreme Court paused the case to give the N.F.L. time to prepare an appeal.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/sports/football/brian-flores-discrimination-nfl.html