It’s nice that the NFL hired outside consultants to advise the league on its policies regarding players who are involved in domestic violence incidents, but the Rev. Jesse Jackson believes it is incredibly inappropriate that all of the consultants are white, Al-Jazeera reports.
The league recently announced that Lisa Friel, Jane Randel and Rita Smith—three white women—would serve “as senior advisers to the NFL on domestic violence issues.”
“Where is the jury of your peers?” Jackson asked, making reference to how more than half of the league’s players are black. He called the league’s appointments a “shameful insensitivity” that “compounds the credibility crisis.”
Despite the lack of diversity with regard to race, all three women are seemingly qualified and cut their teeth on the issue of domestic violence.
According to Al-Jazeera, “Lisa Friel was the head of the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit in the New York County District Attorney's Office for more than a decade. Jane Randel is the co-founder of No More, a campaign against domestic violence and sexual assault. And Smith is the former executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.”
Jackson’s critique of the NFL is just one voice in the firestorm of criticism that has been levied against the football league all year for the way it handled the Ray Rice fiasco that has dominated headlines in the past few weeks. The former Baltimore Ravens running back was cut from the team and suspended indefinitely from the NFL for hitting his then-fiancee, now wife, Janay, in February. Rice has appealed the NFL’s suspension.
Read more at Al-Jazeera.