The hire next time
The impact of the Rooney Rule extends far beyond the NFL, writes researcher CC DuBOIS
On June 19, 1964, Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators, Joseph Clark and Hugh Scott, voted “Yea” for H.R. 7152, and the Civil Rights Act was sent to the desk of President Lyndon B. Johnson. This legislation instituted a number of federal antidiscrimination and affirmative action initiatives, and general consensus has emerged among researchers that these programs had a positive effect on the employment of black men and women.
Fast forward to 2002, when two African-American football coaches were fired: Tony Dungy, by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Dennis Green, by the Minnesota Vikings. Mr. Green had served 10 years as a head coach, and this was his first season with a losing record. Mr. Dungy became the first coach with a winning record to be fired by the Buccaneers. Later that year, high-profile discrimination lawyers Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran commissioned a study that found that even though black head coaches won a higher percentage of games, they were less likely to be hired and more likely to be fired than their white counterparts.
Enter Dan Rooney. During the national debates about civil rights, equality and anti-discrimination policies that occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Rooney graduated from Duquesne University and became the Pittsburgh Steelers’ director of personnel. By 2002, he was the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and chairman of the National Football League’s diversity committee. He then led the effort to develop and implement a “soft” affirmative action policy that became known as the “Rooney Rule.” The Rooney Rule requires NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any head coaching vacancy; it was later expanded to include senior football operations personnel.
While most Steelers fans are aware of the media debate over the efficacy of the Rooney Rule in the NFL, what even the most fervent fans might not realize is that versions of the Rooney Rule have been adopted in an effort to increase minority hiring in a number of firms and organizations, both public and private, throughout the United States. But did the Rooney Rule even have an impact on minority hiring in the NFL? The answer, according to my research, is yes.
Although the Civil Rights Act of Mr. Rooney’s young adulthood had a positive effect on black employment generally, Title VII prohibited firms from establishing “hard” affirmative action policies that would require the direct consideration of minority status during hiring (e.g., quotas). The Rooney Rule is an example of a “soft” affirmative action policy: It changes the composition of the candidate pool, rather than the criteria used during the hiring process.
In a recent study published in the American Law and Economics Review, I compare hiring trends for NFL head coaches (who were subject to the Rooney Rule) to hiring trends for NFL coordinators and NCAA head football coaches (who were not). I found that a minority candidate is 20 percent more likely to fill an NFL head coaching vacancy after the implementation of the Rooney Rule than before the implementation of the Rooney Rule, even after taking into account the general positive hiring trend for minority candidates that was exhibited by NFL coordinators and NCAA head coaches.
In regard to procuring senior leadership roles, black executives aren’t faring much better than black NFL coaches prior to the Rooney Rule. There have been only 14 black male CEOs in the entire history of the Fortune 500, and as of January there are only four. Given its effect on minority hiring in the NFL, perhaps a Rooney Rulestyle policy would provide the mechanism to change the composition of candidate pools for Fortune 500 CEO positions.
In 2015, President Barack Obama asked tech companies to step up their game on workforce diversity. In response to the president’s challenge, seven announced that they would implement a Rooney Rule-style policy in an effort to hire more women and underrepresented minorities. According to Fortune, Facebook and Pinterest had already revealed their plans to pilot a Rooney Rulestyle policy, while the others — including Intel, Xerox and Amazon — followed the trend.
The policy has expanded to the public sector, as well. After Mr. Rooney’s death, Mayor Bill Peduto announced that the city of Pittsburgh would institute its own version of the Rooney Rule. And U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also urged his colleagues to adopt a similar policy to increase diversity among Democratic congressional staff.
Although the Rooney Rule has had a positive effect on minority hiring in the NFL, firms and organizations adopting Rooney Rule-style policies should take note of Mr. Rooney’s foresight and organizational capital to ensure that the Rooney Rule would be strictly enforced. In 1999, then-Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig encouraged teams to consider minority candidates for front-office positions, but observing the so-called “Selig Rule” is not required. By contrast, in the only case of noncompliance in the NFL, the Detroit Lions were fined $200,000 for failure to interview a minority candidate.
Moreover, Mr. Rooney helped create the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an affinity group of NFL minority coaches, scouts and front office personnel who work with the NFL to establish hiring guidelines for front office and scouting positions as well as talent development programs. Without these supports in place, “soft” affirmative action policies may not translate into a higher number of minority candidates entering the candidate pool.
As a young man, Mr. Rooney witnessed the positive effect of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the employment of black men and women. By 2003, the year the Rooney Rule was implemented, minorities certainly had a better chance to develop their talents; however, they were not always being rewarded equally for that development. Mr. Rooney recognized that implicit bias still remains and that we are all subject to its effects when making decisions. Recognizing this challenge, he designed a hiring policy that gives minority candidates entry into an extremely “noisy” hiring process.
The Rooney Rule certainly served the Pittsburgh Steelers well when they hired Mike Tomlin. “There were some people who said, ‘I want to hire whoever I want to hire. You can’t be telling us who to hire.’ That is your decision,” Mr. Rooney said, according to ESPN. “But we say you must give an opportunity to an AfricanAmerican or a minority. That sort of took hold. And when we went through that, it worked.”
Not only has it worked for Mike Tomlin, it has significantly increased the chance of being hired for all NFL minority head coaching candidates. Perhaps it will also increase the probability that minorities develop their talents at Facebook, Pinterest, Intel, Xerox, Amazon, government agencies and beyond.