In the NFL, there’s this thing called “The Rooney Rule.”  It refers to a rule that stipulates every team looking to hire a head coach must at least interview one minority for the job.  (You know, not to patronize them or anything.)

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that many NFL teams simply conduct “token” interviews in order to comply with the Rooney Rule – which, oddly enough, is named after a white guy.  Just recently, the Washington Redskins and the Seattle Seahawks hired two big-name coaches who happen to be white – one of whom was a highly prized college coach, Pete Carroll of USC.

In the case of the Seattle Seahawks, they unexpectedly fired their old head coach, Jim Mora – apparently once Pete Carroll became available.  In other words, it looks like the Seahawks fired their head coach with the intention of hiring Carroll and no one else.  But because the NFL has the Rooney Rule, they had to pretend like they actually were giving a minority coach a chance.

This is, in essence, what is wrong with how we treat minorities today.

Says Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN:

The Rooney Rule, that NFL teams cannot hire a new head coach or general manager without interviewing a minority candidate, in recent use smacks of snake oil. The Redskins hired Bruce Allen as general manager, then Mike Shanahan as coach, without any meaningful consideration of anyone else. Skins assistant coach Jerry Gray, who is African-American, appears to have been interviewed strictly to satisfy the letter of the rule; the spirit of the rule was ignored. Seattle appears to have hired Pete Carroll as coach without giving meaningful consideration to anyone else. The Seahawks interviewed Minnesota defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, who is black, but reportedly not until they were already finalizing a deal with Carroll. The Rooney Rule was supposed to be about progress, not public relations tokenism.

…

Ted Cottrell, who did a great job as defensive coordinator for the Bills, Jets and Vikings, got called in for so many head-coaching interviews that were shams to cover the Rooney Rule that it seemed to burn him out, reduce his effectiveness and make him bitter about the NFL. Cottrell may have actually believed he was being considered for the jobs! He’s now exiled to the UFL, and that’s not because he forgot how to coach.

If the exact problem is that people in the majority look at a minority and automatically think “skin color, skin color,” the Rooney Rule perpetuates that.  One can only imagine the team owners talking to management:  “Well guys, I think we’re ready to hire Mike Shanahan.  But we do have that Rooney Rule to comply with, so which token black guy can we get in here for a phony interview by tomorrow?”  So equal.  So racially blind.  So progressive.

If you’re a supporter of the Rooney Rule, you may be quick to point out that it seems to have worked – there are some six black head coaches in the NFL and many of them have been successful.  There are also black general managers, like Jerry Reese in New York.

Okay.  Fine and dandy.  I’ll just ignore how weird it is to think “success” could be defined by engineering how many head coaches are black. Even then, I’m guessing the last thing Jerry Reese wants to be known as is a “black general manager,” or Lovie Smith a “black head coach.”

The Rooney Rule just keeps this “black head coach” thing fresh in peoples’ minds. How many touchdowns did Andre Johnson have this year? How many MVPs does Peyton Manning have? How many head coaches are black?

And besides, isn’t the whole “skin color of head coaches” kind of arbitrary in the first place?  Most NFL players are black; you don’t see me crying for there to be a predetermined amount of white players based on the general population. The best players play and that’s that.

Maybe we need to institute the Morgan Freeman rule:  just ignore race when it comes to these ridiculous special treatments that end up just patronizing the people they’re supposed to celebrate.