Back to the Top News Newsfeed

NFL Cheerleaders’ Fight to Be Heard

After years of low wages, poor working conditions and sexual harassment, change was needed. But now, as NFL teams re-make their cheerleading squads, the women themselves are often cut out of the conversation—and it’s the cheerleaders who are being told they’re the ones who need to change.

The email showed up at 3:29 p.m. on a Friday in February. In 31 minutes, there would be an “Important Meeting”—the only two words in the subject line of a Washington Football Team executive’s email.

Candess Correll decided she wouldn’t be joining the Zoom call. She was a team captain for the First Ladies of Football, Washington’s cheerleading squad for the past six decades, but she’s also a full-time senior software engineer who was working remotely at the time.