Florida’s attorney general has picked an unusually powerful entity as the next target in the state’s legal battle against “woke” policies: the National Football League.

James Uthmeier, the state’s top law enforcement official, said on Thursday that he planned to send a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell demanding that the league end its Rooney Rule by May 1, arguing that the rule violates civil rights protections and threatening “enforcement actions” if the league doesn’t comply.

Embed: https://x.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2036877316664459440

Uthmeier suggested that the rule amounts to an illegal focus on race in hiring. The rule doesn’t require NFL teams to hire a person of any race or create quotas on that basis. The NFL initiated the measure 23 years ago to remedy the fact that its teams often passed over nonwhite candidates for head coaching jobs. It requires teams to interview nonwhite candidates for executive roles like head coach, coordinator, or general manager, and many have argued that it's been ineffective.

More than two decades in, the NFL continues to receive criticism for its lack of progress. On that front, Uthmeier’s threat lands at an odd time. The NFL had 10 head coaching vacancies this offseason, none of which were filled by a Black candidate. Robert Saleh, who is Lebanese-American and was the first Muslim head coach in the NFL, was hired by the Tennessee Titans. Every other head coaching job was filled by white men, and there are currently only three Black head coaches out of 32 in the league, down from a high of seven in 2024.

One of those coaches, Todd Bowles, leads a Florida team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Another Florida squad, the Miami Dolphins, is a defendant in a class-action lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in the league’s hiring practices. That suit was filed by former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, who was interviewed this offseason for multiple head coaching jobs without receiving an offer.