The splashy, recent hires by the Washington NFL football team and its owner Daniel Snyder are being questioned by the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which assists the NFL in enforcing compliance of the Rooney Rule, ESPN’s The Undefeated reported Wednesday
Terry Batemen was named executive vice president and chief marketing officer Monday. This is the third go-round with the team for Bateman, who was the president of Snyder Communications marketing services from 1994-97.
The franchise followed that Tuesday by hiring Julie Donaldson as senior vice president of media. According to the team’s news release, Donaldson “will be the first female to be a regular on-air member of an NFL radio broadcast booth.”
The question is whether the team followed the procedures outlined in the league’s Rooney Rule …
… approved by owners May 19, clubs and the league office are required to interview “minorities and/or female applicants” for positions such as team president and “senior executives in communications, finance, human resources, legal, football operations, sales, marketing, sponsorship, information technology and security positions.” Moreover, there must be a credible process in which owners, or those they empower to make hires, interview multiple candidates and deliberate before picking one.
In a text message to The Undefeated, the Fritz Pollard Alliance’s top decision-maker, Rod Graves,wrote, “The Fritz Pollard Alliance has sent inquiries to the NFL and to the Washington Football Team regarding the hiring process for Terry Bateman and Julie Donaldson.”
The article states there are questions whether Washington conducted thorough hiring processes as required by the Rooney Rule, two NFL club executives told The Undefeated.
The team is in crisis mode as its corporate sponsors are among those that forced it to undergo a “thorough review,” which led to the decision to change its nickname from what is considered a racist slur toward Native Americans.
That was followed by a Washington Post report detailing the awful corporate culture, where 15 women who formerly worked with the organization detailed sexual harassment. within it.