Did the Rooney Rule Really Work?

Last week, Tobias J. Moskowitz and?L. Jon Wertheim wrote a guest post about black coaches in the NFL and the introduction of the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority applicant when filling head-coaching spots. Moskowitz and Wertheim concluded that the policy change was successful: “The league achieved its aim. By 2005, there were six African-American coaches in the NFL…” However, a?paper by Benjamin L. Solow, John L. Solow and Todd B. Walker examines minority hiring in the NFL and challenges that conclusion. “We examine a unique data set of high-level assistant coaches (offensive and defensive coordinators) from the beginning of the 1970 season through the beginning of the 2009 season to determine whether race is a factor in NFL teams’ decisions to promote these assistants to head coach,” write the authors. “Using logit and hazard models that control for age, experience and performance, we conclude that conditional on a coach reaching coordinator status, there is no evidence that race influences head coach hiring decisions. We also find no evidence that the Rooney Rule has increased the number of minority head coaches.” [%comments]