Does the NFL think it is exempt from hostile work environment regulations? Just because many of those in the front office are lifelong football players, do they think that in today's age, inappropriate behavior is OK?
Pittsburgh Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney is only "considering some sort of discipline" for pornographic email sent and forwarded by people who should know better. Last week, Steelers line coach Larry Zierlein inadvertently forwarded an e-mail he received from Doug Whaley, the Steelers' pro personnel coordinator, to multiple high-level team employees and their secretaries throughout the NFL, including commissioner Roger Goodell (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
"I saw the e-mail. It was brutal," said a source in ProFootballTalk.
I guess that I would expect lapses in judgment will happen. I also would expect an apology and some sort of meaningful discipline to back it up. This would be in support of the Supreme Court ruling of “immediate and appropriate corrective action.”
But, instead, we hear that the front office is only "considering" action. We see the following player quote:
"It's just one of those things, man," center Chukky Okobi said. "If it's something pornographic or whatever, I mean, we've all seen it. You don't show it to your mom, and you don't send it to the commissioner." (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Another quote from a source quoted the blog, ProFootballTalk:
He's a good dude, works hard, handles himself very professionally. He's going to have that follow him around for a long time. Zierlein's irrelevant. He's older. This would be his last job probably anyways."
The blog itself gives the following advice:
Here's the best advice to anyone who works for an NFL team -- set up a separate e-mail account through Yahoo! or AOL or Google or MSN, and use that address for receiving and sending things that could get you in trouble.
I would like to offer the following advice. Professional football is a multimillion dollar business that has a direct impact on the hearts and minds of young Americans. This puts you on a higher standard than other companies and a much higher standard than the stereotypical "dumb jocks." Certainly anyone with the word "personnel" in his title ought to know. It is time to live up to the standard that the rest of us must live up to.
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