Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden called the NFL’s wanting to move his lawsuit to arbitration “unconscionable,” per Nevada state court filings obtained by The Athletic. Arbitration is a small trial conducted by a neutral third party for lawsuits so that it doesn’t have to go to a court trial.
Gruden also said the NFL’s concern over racial issues were “quite foolish now after the torrent of revelations against the NFL and (commissioner Roger) Goodell that have recently come to light.” Goodell was referring to Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the NFL for alleged racist hiring practices.
Gruden resigned as Raiders coach in October after offensive emails he sent from 2010 to 2018 were released. The emails, published by The New York Times, featured misogynistic, racist and anti-LGBTQ language by Gruden. Gruden is now suing the NFL for what he alleges was an orchestrated campaign to ruin his reputation. He has alleged that the NFL leaked the emails, though the NFL denied the claim.
Gruden used Flores’s lawsuit as a platform to try and prove the NFL had no ground to stand on in terms of racial equality. He described the NFL’s concern as “newly discovered zeal for fighting discrimination and advancing social justice.”
The NFL was made aware of Gruden’s emails long before they were published and didn’t punish Gruden immediately. Gruden argued that in itself diminished the NFL’s argument.
“If Defendants truly had an interest in ‘rooting racism, sexism, and homophobia out of professional football,’ and these are not merely hollow statements, then why did Defendants not initiate disciplinary proceedings in June 2021?” Gruden said, per The Athletic.
