NEW YORK -- A lawyer for Brian Flores told a judge Monday that arbitration is the wrong way to resolve a lawsuit that alleges racist hiring practices in the NFL in part because league commissioner Roger Goodell would be the arbitrator and that would be "unconscionable."
Attorney Douglas Wigdor said the league was trying to force "behind closed doors" the claims of Flores and two other Black coaches. None of the coaches was present for the Manhattan federal court hearing.
It was the first hearing for a lawsuit Flores filed in February, when he claimed the league was "rife with racism" even as the NFL publicly condemns it.