NFL teams will need to tread carefully when trying
to get answers out of college prospects.
A year ago, three players contended they were
awkwardly asked about topics that seemed to reference sexual orientation. Two
weeks ago, Missouri defensive end Michael Sam and NFL hopeful publicly
announced he was gay.
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Questions are sure to be a hot topic this week in
Indianapolis.
“A lot of
people want to know what the rules are and whether they’re different in the
NFL, and they’re really not,” said Camille Olson, an attorney with the
discrimination litigation practice group of Seyfarth Shaw.
“It’s pretty clear, it’s black-letter law.
An employer is not able to take into consideration
for any employment purpose someone’s sexual orientation.
If the answer is, ‘Locker rooms are different,’ you
still can’t ask questions on that topic.”
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told The Associated Press recently
in an email that the league has sent a memo to all teams reminding them of
those standards.
Longtime NFL executive Bill Polian doesn’t believe the
announcement should change a thing in the eyes of league scouts and decision
makers.
“I’ve always taken the position that a person’s
sexual orientation is none of my business,” said Polian, architect of the
Colts’ Super Bowl team and the Bills’ four straight AFC championship teams.
“We always had a position (with the Colts) that a
player has familial obligations, so it would be reasonable to ask do you have a
steady partner, do you have any children or siblings that you have to support.
Those are perfectly legitimate questions to find out
what the guy’s facing in terms of his obligations. But a person’s sexual
orientation is none of my business, and I always made it clear to everyone we
had, it was none of their business, either.”
Olson said she considers questions about familial
obligations to be inappropriate but not necessarily illegal.
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