By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, May 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court turned away on Tuesday a bid by the National Football League to move a Black coach’s racial discrimination claims out of federal court and into arbitration proceedings controlled by the NFL.
The justices declined to hear an appeal by the league and three of its teams filed after a lower court ruled that the NFL cannot force Brian Flores, the former Miami Dolphins head coach and current Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator, to arbitrate workplace bias claims through a process overseen by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
The teams involved in the appeal were the New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans.
Flores, 45, has accused the NFL, the most popular professional sports league in the United States, of systematic discrimination against Black coaches.
David Gottlieb, a lawyer for Flores, welcomed the court’s decision to turn away the league’s appeal.
“The NFL must now accept that its commissioner cannot be the arbitrator over discrimination claims against the league and its teams,” Gottlieb said. “We look forward to litigating these claims in court.”
Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesperson, said the league respects the court’s decision.
“Regardless of the forum, we are fully prepared to defend ourselves as this matter proceeds,” McCarthy said.
According to Flores’ 2022 lawsuit, the NFL and several teams discriminated against Black candidates for coaching and management jobs in violation of federal and state laws. Flores filed the suit after being fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins despite the team having a winning record for two consecutive seasons.
Flores alleged that during his career he was asked to have “sham interviews” with the Giants and Broncos merely to satisfy a 2003 NFL policy called the Rooney Rule requiring that minorities be interviewed for coaching jobs. The NFL adopted the Rooney Rule in 2003 in light of the historically low number of minorities in NFL head coaching positions.
Two more Black coaches, former Arizona Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks and former longtime NFL assistant coach Ray Horton, later joined Flores as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks to force the NFL to make a series of changes, incentivize teams to hire Black coaches and general managers, and require teams to explain hiring and termination decisions in writing.
The NFL, which has denied claims of racial discrimination, responded to the lawsuit by arguing it should either be dismissed as lacking legal merit, or else sent to arbitration.
A New York-based federal judge in 2023 ruled that the NFL and the Giants, Broncos and Texans must face Flores’ claims of systematic discrimination against Black coaches in the league, while sending other aspects of the case to private arbitration.
On appeal, the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2025 agreed that some of Flores’ claims belonged in federal court. The 2nd Circuit ruled that a provision in the NFL constitution granting Goodell unilateral authority to arbitrate was “plainly unenforceable” because it would deny Flores arbitration “in any meaningful sense of the word.”
An arbitration agreement that “compels one party to submit its disputes to the substantive and procedural authority of the principal executive officer of one of their adverse parties, is an agreement for arbitration in name only,” Judge Jose Cabranes wrote for the 2nd Circuit.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
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