6 state attorneys general threaten NFL with probe over treatment of female employees

Six state lawyers normal issued a danger to the Nationwide Football League on Wednesday: shield feminine staff members or experience a prospective investigation.

“Our offices will use the complete pounds of our authority to investigate and prosecute allegations of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation by companies in the course of our states, together with at the National Soccer League,” the lawyers typical from New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington wrote in a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “All of this is solely unacceptable and potentially illegal.”

The letter was attained by ABC News.

The letter centers on a tale penned by the New York Times that it reported “described a workplace lifestyle that is overtly hostile to girls.”

All but one particular of the states have an NFL franchise and the state of New York is dwelling to NFL headquarters.

“In New York, the place the NFL is headquartered, the Office of the Attorney Typical has under no circumstances hesitated to get action to secure employees from sexual harassment and abuse, no matter if they are entry-amount workers of the Weinstein Company or servers and bartenders at Batali-owned places to eat,” the letter says.

In February, a congressional committee heard from former Washington Commanders workers about prospective sexual harassments allegations. Tiffani Johnston, a previous advertising and marketing and situations coordinator for the then-Washington Redskins, was allegedly put following to operator Dan Synder at a meal “not to explore small business, but to allow for him, Dan Snyder, to put his hand on my thigh less than the desk.”

Snyder, in a assertion noted by ESPN, apologized for earlier misconduct by the corporation, but denied the new allegations involving himself.

The letter to Goodell suggests in the aftermath of the Ray Rice scandal in 2014, the NFL promised to enhance the tradition for females at the NFL, but it explained the allegations described in the New York Periods account “propose that you have not.”

Woman workers instructed the New York Situations they were “that they have been held again and criticized for obtaining an “‘aggressive tone’ — an normally unfair stereotype of women, particularly females of shade, who try out to progress in a male dominated workplace.”

“Other ladies reported that, in a coaching supposed to make improvements to sensitivity on the situation, they were being asked to elevate their hand to self-determine if they experienced been victims of domestic violence or realized someone who experienced,” the letter states. “This is NOT undertaking much better. Anti-discrimination regulations in several states, together with New York, prohibit companies from subjecting domestic violence victims, as properly as girls and persons of shade, to a hostile do the job natural environment.”

In a statement, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy advised ABC Information the NFL shares the “commitment of the lawyers typical to making sure that all of our workplaces — which includes the league office environment and 32 clubs — are numerous, inclusive and free from discrimination and harassment.”

“We have built fantastic strides in excess of the yrs in guidance of that motivation, but admit that we, like several businesses, have more perform to do,” McCarthy claimed in an e-mail. “We seem forward to sharing with the lawyers common the insurance policies, methods, protocols, education and learning systems and partnerships we have implemented to act on this motivation and confirm that the league place of work and our clubs retain a respectful place of work the place all our workforce, which include women of all ages, have an option to thrive.”

He pointed to staff training plans with Increase, GLAAD, Paradigm, The Winters Team and internal affinity groups exactly where workers can interact, understand and aid just about every other within just smaller sized communities like BEN (Black Engagement Network), PIN (Mom and dad Initiative Network) and Earn (Women’s Interactive Network), as illustrations.