MIAMI — The NFL and the six teams named as defendants in former Dolphins coach Brian Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit have filed a motion to move the suit to private arbitration. The motion, filed Tuesday, also seeks to indefinitely suspend the litigation proceedings.
If the motion is granted, Commissioner Roger Goodell would oversee the arbitration process. Flores’ attorney Douglas Wigdor previously said the league demonstrated “this unconscionable bias of the arbitrator” when the NFL said the claims in the lawsuit were without merit after it was first filed.
Flores’ lawyers are seeking to avoid arbitration and take the suit to trial, which would likely lead to the revealing of more private documents from the league and its teams. They’ve criticized the league for lacking transparency by attempting to move the lawsuit to arbitration.
In a letter to District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, Loretta Lynch, the former U.S. Attorney General and counsel for the league, claims such documents “contain proprietary and sensitive information” and other irrelevant information that would place other teams at a competitive disadvantage. The league has previously argued that the claims in the lawsuit must be moved to arbitration according to the terms of employment agreements.
Flores, who was fired by the Dolphins in January and was later hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as a defensive assistant, is accusing the league of racial discrimination in its hiring and firing practices, along with allegations that multiple teams — the New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans, conducted sham interviews with him for head-coaching vacancies. Flores is also accusing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross of offering $100,000 per loss during the 2019 season, allegations he has denied. Flores claims his resistance to losing games alienated him from the organization and ultimately played a role in his dismissal. The league is investigating Flores’ tanking allegations.
Two Black coaches, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, joined Flores’ lawsuit earlier in May accusing the Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans, respectively, of racial discrimination. Wilks, who was head coach of the Cardinals for the 2018 season and was fired after a 3-13 finish, was hired as a “bridge coach and was not given any meaningful chance to succeed.” Wilks, who is Black, was replaced by Kliff Kingsbury, who is white and had no NFL head coaching experience.
Horton, who is also Black, claims he was given a “completely sham interview” for the Titans’ opening in January 2016. In a 2020 podcast interview, Mike Mularkey, who was hired over Horton, says Titans management informed him he was getting the job even as interviews were still being conducted.
A motion for discovery by Flores’ legal team must be filed by July 1, Caproni wrote. Flores has a deadline of July 22 to respond to the league’s motion to move the suit to arbitration.
