Florida attorney general issues investigative subpoena to the NFL over the Rooney Rule

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has issued a subpoena to the NFL as his office investigates whether the league has committed potential civils rights violations related to the Rooney Rule and the league's other employment practices, policies and programs.

Uthmeier, who threatened possible enforcement actions against the league in March if it didn’t suspend the 23-year-old rule, sent the subpoena along with a letter to NFL executive vice president and attorney Ted Ullyot on Wednesday.

The subpoena commands the league to appear at the attorney general’s office in Tallahassee, Florida, on June 12. It asks the league to produce extensive documents, including “all diversity reports, coaching census data, or demographic surveys that reflect the race and sex of coaching staffs of the teams from 2017 to the present.”

"All in all, the Rooney Rule and the NFL’s related ‘inclusive hiring’ policies — and the NFL’s representations about these policies — continue to raise significant concerns under Florida law,” Uthmeier wrote in the letter.

The Rooney Rule requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coach, general manager and coordinator positions. At least one minority candidate must be interviewed for the quarterbacks coach position.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, speaking at the league meetings in Phoenix in March, acknowledged the changing political landscape for diversity initiatives in the U.S., but added that he didn’t believe there should be any legal issues with the league’s policy. “The Rooney Rule has been around a long time,” Goodell said then. “We’ve evolved it, changed it. We’ll continue to do that.”

The NFL didn't comment Wednesday on the subpoena.

But in a letter to Uthmeier on May 1, the league said: “The NFL’s pursuit of top-tier talent led to the adoption of the Rooney Rule in 2003. Importantly, the Rooney Rule does not impose any hiring quotas or mandates, and it does not license clubs to consider race or sex in making hiring decisions. Hiring decisions for NFL teams are made by the individual clubs — not the League — and those decisions are based on merit. The Rooney Rule neither requires, nor permits, any team to make a hiring decision on the basis of race, sex, or any other protected characteristic. To do so would be an express violation of League policy.”

Uthmeier commended the league for altering the Rooney Rule language on its website after receiving his initial warning letter in March but added the revisions raise more questions.

The updated terminology on the NFL site says: “The Rooney Rule establishes best practices designed to expand opportunity and strengthen the NFL’s talent pipeline across leadership roles. It is part of a broader effort to develop a deep and sustainable talent pipeline across all levels of the NFL. The policy is intended to ensure that qualified candidates from a wide range of backgrounds are identified and considered for leadership roles.”

The website previously stated the Rooney Rule aims to “increase the number of minorities hired” in leadership positions and said that diversity “enriches the game and creates a more effective, quality organization.”

“We appreciate how quickly the NFL changed its website in response to our letter and capitulated on some of their discriminatory hiring quotas,” Uthmeier said. “But their response raises more questions about the Rooney Rule, and we look forward to their cooperation with the investigative subpoena we issued them today.”

In the May 1 letter, the league had told Uthmeier: “We appreciate that your letter has brought to our attention some outdated information on the NFL’s website regarding these programs. This information is in the process of being updated to accurately reflect the NFL’s current programs and policies.”

Uthmeier sent his first letter to Goodell in March, saying the Rooney Rule amounts to “blatant race and sex discrimination.”

The subpoena expands the focus beyond the Rooney Rule and includes other NFL diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including a discontinued mandate that required teams to hire a minority offensive assistant; the diversity accelerator program; the Mackie development program for college officials; and the resolution that awards teams draft picks if one of its minority assistant coaches or executives is hired to be the coach or general manager of another team.

The NFL's front office and coach accelerator program will be held next week in Orlando after it was paused in 2025. The program was created as an extension of the Rooney Rule in 2022 to increase diversity among coaches and front office executives. It will now include nonminority participants.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell participates in a panel discussion during groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park, Ohio, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

FILE - Footballs are seen before an NFL football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders on Jan. 4, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein started feeling chest pains in a courthouse Wednesday as jurors deliberated in the former movie mogul’s closely watched rape retrial, his lawyers said, prompting the judge to end the first day of deliberations early.

Weinstein, 74, has myriad health problems, including cancer and a history of heart trouble, and he uses a wheelchair. He has been behind bars since 2020 and told a court in January that his “health is deteriorating” in New York's infamously troubled Rikers Island jail.

The ex-producer wasn’t in the courtroom, but rather was waiting elsewhere in the courthouse, when defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said around 3 p.m. that court officers had told him that Weinstein was having chest pains.

Jurors weren't in the room at the time. They were about four hours into their closed-door discussions, and they had just sent a note asking to rehear part of accuser Jessica Mann ’s testimony — a brief portion in which she said she was “spacing out” during cross-examination — and to review a lengthy prosecution timeline of emails and other evidence.

Judge Curtis Farber ultimately told jurors only that there were “unforeseen reasons” for sending them home a bit earlier than planned. Prosecutors and Weinstein’s lawyers had left the courtroom so jurors would be less likely to speculate about Weinstein’s absence.

“He wants to be here, but he’s having chest pains,” Agnifilo told the judge before ducking out of the courtroom.

Jurors are due to get the requested information and resume deliberations Thursday.

Weinstein has had health problems at court before. When he was sent to jail for the first time in 2020, he was taken from the courthouse in an ambulance to be checked out at a hospital for heart palpitations and high blood pressure. In 2024, he was rushed from Rikers to a hospital and had emergency surgery to remove fluid on his heart and lungs.

Mann, 40, has testified that she and Weinstein had a consensual relationship, but that he subjected her to unwanted sex in a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013 after she repeatedly said no. Lawyers for Weinstein have maintained that the encounter was consensual, and they have emphasized that Mann continued seeing Weinstein afterward and expressing warmth toward him. Mann has said she was mired in complicated feelings about him, herself and what had happened, and was “normalizing everything.”

Her viewpoint changed in 2017, when a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning Weinstein propelled the #MeToo campaign to hold people — especially powerful men — accountable for sexual misbehavior. Weinstein has said he “acted wrongly” but never assaulted anyone.

Some of those accusations later generated criminal convictions against Weinstein in New York and California.

An appeals court overturned his 2020 New York conviction on charges that involved Mann and another accuser. At a retrial last year, jurors failed to reach a verdict on Mann's portion of the case, leading to a second retrial this year. He is charged with one count of rape in the third degree.

The current jury heard nearly three weeks of testimony, five days of it from Mann. Weinstein decided not to testify.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. Mann, however, has agreed to be named.

An earlier version of this story erroneously suggested that Weinstein left the courtroom after experiencing chest pains. Weinstein was not in court at the time.

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in New York. (Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP, Pool)

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in New York. (Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP, Pool)