A U.S. district judge ruled on Friday that all claims in the ongoing discrimination lawsuit filed by Brian Flores, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton against the NFL can proceed in court instead of being compelled to the league’s arbitration system.
In a memorandum and opinion filed in the Southern District of New York, Judge Valerie E. Caproni wrote that “the NFL’s unilateral control over the dispute resolution process is the fatal flaw.”
She added: “Especially pressing here, what good are procedures if they are, seemingly, entirely optional (at least for one side)?”
The court had previously ruled in March 2023 that some claims in the case had to proceed in arbitration. But a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that arbitration, with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell overseeing the process, was unlawful and the decision was reversed. That cleared the way for all claims in the case to be heard by a court, subject to appeal.
“The court’s decision recognizes that an arbitration forum in which the defendant’s own chief executive gets to decide the case would strip employees of their rights under the law,” Douglas H. Wigdor and David E. Gottlieb, the attorneys for the coaches, said in a statement. “It is long overdue for the NFL to recognize this and finally provide a fair, neutral and transparent forum for these issues to be addressed.”
An NFL spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Flores, now the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator, sued the NFL, New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Miami Dolphins in February 2022, a month after he was fired as head coach of the Dolphins and after he did not secure a head-coaching job during that hiring cycle. His lawsuit alleges that the teams conducted “sham interviews” to fulfill the NFL’s Rooney Rule policy, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for executive roles as well as head coach, coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The suit also alleges that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross pressured Flores to lose games in order for the team to secure a higher selection in the draft, and that Flores was asked to recruit a prominent quarterback in violation of the league’s tampering rules. Flores claims the NFL is “rife with racism, particularly when it comes to the hiring and retention of Black head coaches, coordinators and general managers.”
Wilks and Horton joined the lawsuit in April 2022, and the Houston Texans, Tennessee Titans and Arizona Cardinals were added as defendants. Wilks’ claim is against the Cardinals, who fired him after the 2018 season, his lone year with the franchise; Horton’s claim is against the Titans for their head-coach interview process in 2016, which he claims was an “orchestrated attempt” to create the appearance of equal opportunity for Black candidates when the team had already settled on a white coach, Mike Mularkey. Flores alleged that the Texans “retaliated” against him after he filed the lawsuit by removing him from consideration for their head-coaching vacancy at the time.
Flores interviewed for the Pittsburgh Steelers’, Baltimore Ravens’ and Arizona Cardinals’ head-coaching vacancies, as well as the Washington Commanders’ defensive coordinator job, earlier this year. He signed a new contract to serve as the Vikings’ defensive coordinator. Wilks was fired by the Jets in December, and Horton last coached in the NFL in 2019 as Washington’s defensive backs coach.