NFL enacts new diversity measures amid allegation, concerns on minorities not getting coaching jobs

The National Football League has enacted new diversity measures including a requirement that each team have a minority assistant coach in a significant role on its offensive staff.

The NFL on Monday also appointed an outside advisory committee to assist in minority hiring efforts and approved a resolution endorsing diversity in franchise ownership, after years of efforts to bring more diversity into the upper ranks of coaching and management, according to The Washington Post.

"Obviously we're still not seeing the kind of progress that we would like to see on the head coaching front," said Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II, chairman of the NFL’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee. 

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, one of the NFL’s two black head coaches, said after the announcement he was not confident the league's new measures would improve minority hiring.

The measures were also were enacted about a month after former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination.

Flores was fired in January by the Dolphins and is now a Steelers assistant.

The new advisory committee includes Rick Smith, former general manager of the Houston Texans; Don Thompson, former president and CEO of McDonald’s; and Stefanie Johnson, associate professor at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business, the newspaper also reports.