On Monday, March 28th, 2022, the National Football League (NFL) announced that it has created a Diversity Advisory Committee to review its hiring practices and policies with a “focus on senior-level coach and front office personnel positions.” This announcement was made as NFL owners hold their annual league meetings in Palm Beach, Florida.

The league said the committee was formed “in light of ongoing concerns over a lack of diversity in hiring.” Last month, Brian Flores, former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, filed a lawsuit against three NFL teams along with the NFL itself for racial discrimination. Flores, who is Hispanic and Black, claims that he was interviewed by the New York Giants under “disingenuous circumstances” as he had found out three days before his interview that the Giants had already decided to hire the Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll, who is white. Flores believes that they only interviewed him to seem like they had diversity in the people they interviewed, when they already had a coach picked out.

The committee members include Rick Smith, the former Houston Texans general manager, Peter Harvey, a former New Jersey attorney general, Pamela Carlton, who is the founder and president of Springboard, and CEO and founder of Cleveland Avenue and former president and CEO of the McDonald’s corporation.

NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, says he hopes that the committee’s work will help build a more inclusive league. In a statement released by the NFL, 32 teams addressed  that they are committed to increasing diversity within the league.

Goodell added, “We’ve worked for years and progress in many areas to ensure that staff and leaders in our office and at our clubs reflect the racial and gender makeup of America, but we have more work to do, particularly at the head coach and front-office level.” The overall objective of this committee is to enhance opportunities for minority coaches and players across the NFL.