In a joint letter filed by the lawyers for Brian Flores and the NFL, the league announced its intention to dismiss the former Dolphins coach’s racial discrimination lawsuit or move it to arbitration.
The league denied the claims of racial discrimination, saying the accusations must face arbitration as part of the employment agreement with the NFL and its teams. The NFL also said the claims lack legal merit because it must be proven that Flores would not have experienced the discrimination had he not been Black, which the league believes cannot be done in a trial.
“Mr. Flores himself alleges that he was terminated by the Dolphins for reasons plainly unrelated to his race, including his alleged refusal to intentionally lose games or to violate NFL rules,” the league’s lawyers wrote.
Flores’ lawyers have pushed back on a motion to move the litigation to arbitration, claiming it will remove all transparency and stifle efforts to improve diversity in the NFL. They said the league denied their efforts for mediation with the inclusion of a neutral third party, including retired federal judges and members of the legal and civil rights community.
The NFL’s lawyers said the league is “engaged in ongoing efforts to improve diversity among coaches and staff, and would welcome the involvement of Plaintiffs and other Black coaches and executives in those efforts.”
Flores, who was fired by the Dolphins in January and was later hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as an assistant, is accusing the league of racial discrimination in its hiring and firing practices, along with allegations that multiple teams conducted sham interviews with him for head-coaching vacancies.
Two Black coaches, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, joined Flores’ lawsuit earlier in the month, 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.
The league’s lawyers said the two have not “identif[ied] any particular employment practice that is causing a disparate impact on Black coaches or coaching candidates.”
Flores is also accusing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross of offering $100,000 per loss during the 2019 season, allegations he has denied.
An initial pretrial conference is scheduled for April 29.
