Study: NFL makes progress on gender hiring, but teams lagging
The NFL’s hiring of longtime Washington police chief Cathy Lanier to head the league’s security department contributed to an all-time high in management positions held by women, according to a study released Wednesday.
Focus in recent years on the NFL’s diversity efforts has largely been on coaches of color, which remained stagnant at six in 2016. But the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport’s annual NFL report card highlighted both the gains by women at the league office as well as struggles that remain on the team level.
The league received an “A” for racial hiring practices and a “C+” gender hiring practices by the University of Central Florida department that distributed the report. On the whole, the league received a "B" with an overall score of 83.6%, less than one percentage point off last year’s high in the NFL report that has been released each year since 2003.
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“It appears that the NFL is making a bona fide effort,” former Oakland Raiders executive Amy Trask told USA TODAY Sports. “You see that in the league offices with their recent hires, including the significant position of head of security. One might look at other positions and suggest they’re not of tremendous import, but Lanier has one of the most important jobs in the NFL.”
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The number of women at or above the vice president level at the league office stands at 35, four more than a year prior. No new hire has garnered as much attention as that of Lanier, who served as a the Washington D.C. Chief of Police for a decade.
“It was a huge statement,” said Richard Lapchick, the director of Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport and the lead author of the study. “If a woman can be the head of security, a job that traditionally goes to a man, then it could open things up down the line for general manager and coordinator positions with teams.”
That certainly hasn’t happened yet. Individual NFL teams — both in terms of gender and race — were not nearly as diverse.
The percentage of people of color serving as NFL team vice presidents felt to 11.3% in 2016, off from last year’s 13.7%. There also was a drop in relative representation of women at the same level, with the percentage dipping from 22.9% to 21.1%.
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The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports gave an “F” for teams' gender hiring practices.
Trask authored You Negotiate Like a Girl: Reflections on a Career in the National Football League, which details her time as the highest-ranking female executive, including her tenure as the Raiders’ chief executive under progressive owner Al Davis.
“From when I started with the Raiders in the mid-80s in a career that spanned nearly 30 years, the environment became far more inclusive to women,” Trask said. “When I went to my first league meeting, I was told I was the first woman who was not a relative to ownership to attend. The fact that’s is changed has been great. Has it been slower than some would like? I’d say so.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced in February the expansion of the Rooney Rule to require teams to interview women for executive positions. Named after Dan Rooney, the Pittsburgh Steelers owner and chairman of the league's diversity committee, the rule originally mandated that teams interview one minority candidate for coaching and senior football operations openings.
Some of the other highlights of the study:
- The Cleveland Browns' hiring of Hue Jackson offset the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ firing of Lovie Smith, keeping the number of head coaches of color at six. The league had an all-time high of eight coaches of color in 2011.
- The ranks of general managers of color dipped to five, two fewer than at the start of the 2015 season.
- The NFL has 38 game officials of color, an all-time high.
- Green Bay Packers Vice President of Marketing and Fan Engagement Gabrielle Valdez Dow is the lone Hispanic serving at the vice president level among NFL teams.
Lapchick told USA TODAY Sports that another diversity-related issue that he’d like to study is sexual identity.
“So many people self-identity, it would be very difficult to do a report card like this,” Lapchick said.
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