NFL: Release the Fucking Report

Nunez, a former sales employee who has spoken out previously, said she was harassed by multiple executives when she was 23 years old, including a former SVP of communications who commented on her jeans in an “inappropriate way,” and the since-fired director of pro personnel Alex Santos. She had reached out to Santos as he was one of the only employees of Latino background. He later texted her, “You look nice” and detailed “things he would do” to her.

Rachel Engleson, also a former employee who previously spoke out, said in her testimony to Congress that working with the Washington Football Team was her first job. “I experienced many work firsts there: first bonus, first promotion, first office potluck, first employee hire, first threat of physical violence by a supervisor, first hostile work environment, first public humiliation, first sexual assault.”

Engleson added that the man who sexually harassed her was old enough to be her father, and that she was so afraid that she often hid from him at public events, positioning herself between colleagues so he couldn’t reach her.

“Under Dan Snyder’s leadership, women were used as sex objects and tools to increase sales rather than dignified human beings,” said Melanie Coburn, a former team cheerleader and marketing employee who has previously spoken out and who testified Thursday. She said that Snyder once gathered the cheerleaders in the middle of the field for him and his buddies to observe, then instructed them to turn around slowly like “a collection of toys.” Coburn said one of the cheerleaders began crying because she was so uncomfortable.

Snyder responded via his PR representative with the following statement:

Snyder claimed many of the allegations leveled against him personally at the hearing Thursday were “outright lies,” continuing that he “will not be distracted by those with a contrary agenda.”

While the hearing was full of moving testimony, Republicans continued to minimize the rampant issue of sexual assault, not just in the NFL, but across workplaces in America. Kentucky Rep. James Comer (R) said the Committee should be focusing, instead, on issues of inflation, enforcing the Mexico border, and China.

“Instead of adhering to our committee’s mission to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and mismanagement in the federal government, Democrats instead are holding a roundtable about the work culture in one single private organization,” Comer said. Notably, that “single private organization” is one of the most visible in the U.S. right now.

After its 18-month probe, the NFL had slapped the Washington Football Team with a $10 million fine (a measly amount for a multi-billion dollar organization), deeming the workplace practices “highly unprofessional,” complete with regular bullying, intimidation, and a “general lack of respect in the workplace…both generally and particularly for women.” But despite releasing a 243-page report about Tom Brady’s deflategate, the NFL never released the Washington Football Team’s report, which consisted of hundreds of interviews and over 650,000 emails.

However, these women, who have been unimaginably brave and dogged in giving their testimony, will not be silenced by a $10 million fine and a new brand identity. The Commanders, as the team is now known, may have moved on internally, but these women are indicating that they refuse to rest until the NFL promises that not one more woman will be harassed, bullied, or assaulted at work.

The NFL won’t make that promise. The structure of the entire organization means that league commissioner Roger Goodell answers to his boy’s club of billionaires, rather than to the women whose livelihoods and safety depend on him taking his buddies to task. Until Goodell holds every single one of his bad actors accountable, including Snyder, women across the league will continue to be stripped of their right not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender, and not to be sexually violated by their superiors.

So I’ll raise my voice alongside these survivors and demand, again: Release the fucking report.