Washington N.F.L. Harassment Report Shocked Many, but Not Women

After news broke Thursday that there were accusations of rampant sexual harassment within the Washington N.F.L. franchise, several colleagues at women’s organizations hopped on their group chat.

None of them were surprised that The Washington Post reported that 15 women brought harassment claims against male co-workers. Some members of the group chat had previously counseled the N.F.L. on workplace culture issues and all were familiar with how difficult it could be to nudge the male-dominated pro football industry forward.

“If the leadership was OK with a disrespectful, racist and objectifying team name, it wasn’t really a stretch to think that it was going to be translated into the workplace culture there,” said Linda Seabrook, general counsel and director of workplace safety and equity for Futures Without Violence, referring to the team’s long battle against changing its name, which Native Americans (and many dictionaries) consider to be a slur. Washington’s owner, Daniel Snyder, recently folded under pressure from sponsors to change the team’s identity and imagery.

“There are stories after stories of women who have been harassed, marginalized and tokenized within the N.F.L.,” Seabrook said. “And until leadership makes it a priority to change workplace culture, those stories will keep coming.”

Six years ago, after the Ray Rice domestic violence case, the N.F.L. ignited a national debate about how the league and its players treat women, prompting Commissioner Roger Goodell to highlight the N.F.L.’s reform efforts. At a nationally televised news conference, he promised changes to the league’s personal conduct policy, saying, “We will make it happen.” He added: “We will get our house in order first.”

Yet continued reports of domestic violence and sexual assault within the league are reminders that the N.F.L.’s work is far from done. And women’s groups that have pushed the league to make substantial efforts to prevent sexual harassment and domestic violence are painfully aware of how far the league still has to go.

“Change takes time, but you need to have a will and a will is more than words,” said Rene Redwood, a consultant for inclusion and equality who has advised the league on issues of race and abuse. “They’re good at the marketing aspect, saying what they think people will think is important rather than doing the systemic work, whether race or gender.”

Redwood questioned whether the N.F.L. has provided enough resources or the motivation for its teams to keep female employees safe and to give those women equitable chances to succeed. In her view, there are few mechanisms for the league to enforce its guidelines or hold teams accountable for failing to abide by them.

Redwood and other women who advised the N.F.L. said that the league reacted fastest when it perceived that it had an image problem or was under financial pressure, and since few sponsors walked away from the league after the Rice case, organizational reform has been slow.

“As long as they generate revenue, why bother to change?” Redwood said.

The team in Washington has hired the law firm Wilkinson Walsh to review the claims of the women who told The Washington Post that they were sexually harassed while employed by the team. Snyder, the team’s owner, said on Friday in a statement that the behavior described in the article published Thursday “has no place in our franchise or society.”

“This story has strengthened my commitment to setting a new culture and standard for our team, a process that began with the hiring of Coach Rivera earlier this year,” he said in the statement, referring to Ron Rivera, who was hired in December 2019.

The league, in a statement, said the allegations “are serious, disturbing and contrary to the N.F.L.’s values.”

Sunu P. Chandy, the legal director for the National Women’s Law Center, said league and team leaders should immediately re-evaluate and change how they run their male-dominated workplaces, including by installing multiple mechanisms to report harassment and abuse so that every employee can be comfortable at work every day.

“If I was in charge of the N.F.L., I would be asking myself, ‘What kind of culture are we creating here with any team affiliated with us?’” she said, adding that leaders can, and should, decide to be a force for good and not just remain complacent.

One of the hurdles to changing behavior in the N.F.L. is the structure of the league itself. Like most sports leagues, the N.F.L. is essentially a trade organization with 32 franchises across the United States. It has control over some functions, like negotiating broadcast contracts and labor agreements, and it handles marketing and the scheduling of games, but each team is run as its own business entity.

The league establishes guidelines for the workplace that teams must follow, and in some cases, the commissioner can assess financial and other penalties to clubs that violate those rules. But the league office cannot tell a team who to hire.

“There’s no question it’s a juggling act for the N.F.L. to maintain their profits while trying to do the right thing, and there is often a connection between those two things,” said Kim Gandy, the former chief executive of the National Network to End Domestic Violence who advised the N.F.L. after Rice assaulted his then-fiancée.

In recent years, the N.F.L. began anti-harassment training at the league office and clubs undertook their own training efforts. In February, the league’s workplace diversity committee told teams that by next spring, they have to submit plans for unconscious bias training and anti-racism training. The league separately conducts inclusive leadership for employees at its headquarters.

Women hold 36.8 percent of the jobs at the N.F.L.’s headquarters, up nine percentage points from 2010, according to data collected by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. Since 2014, the league has hired several women to fill key positions, including chief marketing officer, vice president for social responsibility and a former prosecutor to run investigations into player misconduct.

But the N.F.L. head office has a lower percentage of women in its ranks than those of other major sports leagues, such as the N.B.A., W.N.B.A. and Major League Soccer. Overall, the institute gave the N.F.L. a “C+” grade for its gender diversity in 2019. In 2016, the league expanded the N.F.L.’s so-called Rooney Rule, decreeing that at least one woman would have to be interviewed for any executive position openings in the league office.

At the club level, the number of women in senior and professional administrative jobs has risen just five percentage points during the past decade. The league does not provide a breakdown of hiring by team, so it is unclear how diverse the front office is at the Washington club.

Still, employing more women at the league office and within its teams, said Seabrook, of Futures Without Violence, won’t solve the recurring mistreatment of women unless there is more fundamental change.

“You can promote all the women you want and put them into all the top positions you want, but if you’re not creating accountability and buy-in in fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace, it doesn’t mean much,” she said.

Gillian R. Brassil contributed reporting.