By Michael Rifkin
The NFL is still looking to recover from the fallout of the Jon Gruden email situation. At the NFL owner’s meetings on Tuesday, Roger Goodell said the league would not release any findings into the investigation of the Washington Football Team from the summer. Goodell said Tuesday, “We’re very conscious of making sure we’re protecting those who came forward.” Two former Washington employees were at the hotel where the meetings took place, handing out letters they sent to the league in regard to them releasing the findings into the investigation. Carolyn Maloney and Raja Krishnamoorthi of the Oversight Committee have asked for the findings to be sent to Congress. In the letter, Maloney and Kirshnamoorthi write, “We have serious concerns about what appears to be widespread abusive workplace at the WFT and about the NFL’S handling of the matter.”
This summer, the Washington Post reported that former female employees came out with reports of sexual harassment and verbal abuse from 2004-2019. Claims included Richard Mann, the second assistant director of player personnel, asking a woman if her breasts were “real or fake” and that this employee wanted to “squeeze her butt.” Will Hobson, the reporter who broke this story, said, “The sales staff were encouraged to wear low cut blouses, tight skirts, and heels.” Larry Michaels, the Senior Vice President of the team, asked employees to make a video for owner Daniel Snyder that included partially nude photos of cheerleaders from a 2008 swimsuit calendar. Attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent 40 women who have made the allegations, wrote a two-page letter urging Goodell to release the findings. They wrote that Goodell “misrepresented the wishes of our clients, and likely those of the other women and men who came forward, to justify your decision to bury what you know would be a damning report.” With all of the pressure from the attorneys and the public, Goodell said Tuesday that he felt team owner Dan Snyder had been “held accountable and more importantly that steps were taken in place so this never happens again.”
The problem people should have with this is when a player does something, we get full transparency. Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated points out, “We got 243 pages on Tom Brady and Deflategate. We got 144 pages on Richie Incognito and Bullygate. We got 96 pages on Ray Rice. Anyone with WI-FI and Google can find those reports readily.” The difference here is the subject of this investigation is someone who helps pay Goodell. This is a double standard for the league to take if you are to hold players accountable for their actions, then the owners should be held to that same standard or an even higher one. Banks and Katz also say in their letter, “Your continued refusal to produce the findings of the investigation, ignoring the repeated pleas from those who put themselves at great risk to participate in this investigation, suggests strongly it is not they who you are determined to protect.” Goodell needs to make this information public and quickly. The longer you drag this out, the more guilty he looks. The public deserves to know what happened during this investigation because the buck doesn’t end with Jon Gruden, which begs this question: Who else is implicated in these emails?
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