Mindsink":3eecg1n9 said:
So going back to the original topic then ... If we're assuming a racial bias in NFL hiring, then I don't think forcing minority interviews is the right way to address it.
Ah, okay, that was your "force" from your last post.
Gonna post this and then edit beneath it in case you see it before responding to my prior one (know that I'm already responding and following you now). :2thumbs:
EDIT: And I'm back. :lol:
So on the topic of the Rooney Rule, we kinda got clear the decks first, because in me experience there tends to be three things swirling together, and what where people fall on these three different things tends to REALLY change what conversation you end up having.
THING 1: Is there agreement that there is racial bias in NFL hiring for head coaches? AFAIK all the data suggests that there certainly seems to be, but not everyone agrees on this, so if both people don't agree on it there's not really any point in getting into the weeds on the Rooney Rule as a good or bad METHOD to address it. :lol:
THING 2: If two people agree about Thing 1, do they ALSO agree that an intervention should be made to create equality of opportunity in this case? Some people might think Thing 1 is true, but they don't think this really matters that much and they don't think ANY intervention should be made to address it. If Thing 2 isn't true, again, there's no point in really talking about the Rooney Rule, as these people aren't opposed to rule itself, they're opposed to ANY intervention because they don't think there should be one.
THING 3: The Rooney Rule. :lol:
If we agree on Thing 1 (inequlaity in opportunity exists) and Thing 2 (it is worth doing something about) the Rooney Rule could be the right or wrong way to address it for sure.
The idea behind the Rooney Rule is that (a) it guarantees that non-white head coaches will get the opportunity to hawk their wares, and (b) by increasing their network diversity across the league it can lead to longer-term change even if it doesn't work in the short term case of each hire (e.g. we're going with the white head coach but we're now going to consider you for a coordinator roll because we like you more than we knew we would).
The other thing about the Rooney Rule is it's a little bit more of a politically palpable way to make this type of intervention, again, assuming we're on board about #1 and #2. It's why I got confused about your "force" langauge, in that (a) teams can interview as many people as they want (meaning nobody LOSES a chance because of the Rooney rule), and (b) it doesn't actually incentivize HIRING a black coach, it just requires considering one.
By way of an example, an alternative method to the Rooney Rule to address this is to actively incentivize at the HIRING stage, not at the consideration stage. This is what happens in TV writers rooms for the major networks, for which there is a "diversity hire" slot in which the network pays for the hiring of one non-white staff writer and that one staff writer doesn't get charged to the show's budget (the method is that if you hire a non-white writer you get a non-white writer for free).
This seems to be pretty effective, as a fair number of the VERY TALENTED now younger-middle aged non-white people we now know got there start through this program. Off the top of my head, Aziz Ansari, Donald Glover, Hannibal Burress, and Mindy Kaling all got their foot in the door through these diversity talent programs, and once they got their feet in the door, over time they had the opportunity to they likely wouldn't have otherwise gotten to show their wares.
For the NFL what this would mean is that for coordinator and head coach positions, instead of the Rooney Rule the NFL would offer to pay (say) 20% of the median coaches salary for teams when they hire non-white coaches and coordinators. It's a direct incentive to do so.
It's an alternative METHOD (as in Thing #3) to try to achieve the same result, so if we really agree on #1 and #2, we kind of have to evaluate the Rooney Rule against alternative methods like this, not just in a vacuum. As I kind of hinted at above one of the reasons I think we have the Rooney Rule and not something like this is that Rooney Rule -- although likely less effective -- is also more politically palpable than this alternative and likely more effective method (one of the reasons diversity hires were for writers rooms and not actors is that nobody gives a crap about writers rooms, so nobody protested that the networks did it -- unlike staff writers head coaches are public-facing and high profile, and ALL the people who disagree on #1, disagree on #2, AND disagree #3 would disagree with the method even more strongly than they disagree with the Rooney Rule method).