NFL players' union chief DeMaurice Smith wants to see more internal team emails to uncover the pervasiveness of racism around the league after Jon Gruden was caught using a racist trope to describe Smith in a 2011 email that surfaced last week.
During a podcast interview with ESPN's Bomani Jones, the NFL Players Association executive director said he's interested in learning how league teams may use race or sexual identity to discriminate.
'Is there correspondence that suggests teams are making decisions about coaches based on the color of their skin?' Smith asked. 'Are they actively hostile to players that have chosen to self-identify in various ways? Are they denigrating of people based on sexual preference or religious identity?'
Specifically, Smith wants to see the 650,000 emails that were included in the NFL's investigation into hostile workplace claims against the Washington Football Team.
Gruden resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday after emails he sent to then-Washington Football Team executive Bruce Allen between 2011 and 2018 surfaced showing him using racist, misogynistic and homophobic language to criticize league figures.
In the emails that were leaked to The New York Times this week, Gruden used several anti-gay slurs, such as 'f******' and 'queers,' in addition to other racist and misogynistic terminology. In another email that was leaked to The Wall Street Journal last week, Gruden told Allen in 2011 that Smith, who is African American, had 'lips the size of Michelin tires.'
The WFT, which is valued in the billions, was fined $10 million by the NFL and owner Dan Snyder stepped away from day-to-day operations for a period of months, but there was no written report of lawyer Beth Wilkinson's inquiry.
Since the Gruden emails surfaced, there have been other calls to reveal the findings of the league inquiry, including any emails that may have been sent by Snyder or his top lieutenants.
Lisa Banks, an attorney for the 40 former WFT employees involved in the investigation, agreed with a CNN interviewer on Wednesday that Gruden has been a 'fall guy' for the league. She went
While agreeing with a CNN interview that Gruden has been a 'fall guy' for the league, Lisa Banks, an attorney for the 40 former WFT employees involved in the investigation demanded the league release its full report.
'Obviously what [Gruden] did and what he wrote was terrible, and he probably deserves to lose his job, but it's telling that the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders is the only one to lose their job after a 10-month investigation into the Washington Football Team and its culture,' Banks told CNN.
After nearly a year of demanding the NFL to release its report, Banks said she believes that damning information about the WFT has yet to be revealed.
'Based on my knowledge and based on my 40 clients and what they provided to the investigators, I know that there's a lot of damning
