This has nothing to do with legality. He wasn’t fired because he did something illegal. He did something that is seen by most of our society as unacceptable. And it is particularly problematic when you work for a league in which an extremely high percentage of the employees are black. So he lost his job. Him remaining the coach was simply untenable for the franchise specifically and the NFL in general.
And it doesn’t matter if he was the object of the investigation. The email became public and once it did, he was done for obvious reasons.
You don’t see issue with this if he wasn’t part of the investigation at all and someone just happened upon some emails meant for only those in the To/From, from 10 years ago and getting fired (forced to resign) off public opinion of those contents?
Consider all possibilities here, who determines the “ist”? Not a fan of his actions at all and think he’s pretty stupid for using his work email in which he is expected to comply with user agreement. If this wasn’t found by the league’s own IT’s at some point recently after sending, then it just looks as if the NFL was fine with this up until the WFT investigation found it or they don’t enforce their own user agreement. So to me, gruden would be a symptom, not the disease and the NFL’s complicity is the bigger issue. That’s especially true since nothing illegal was done, just unfavorable jokes/ statements/ opinions, whatever you want to call them.
it does matter if he was specifically part of the investigation. That means he was a person of interest in the “culture” problem in Washington and with comments like this, could be considered a contributor to that culture. Just still not sure why it took the NFL 10 years to find their own emails failing to meet user agreements.
So the same public opinion that wants Gruden ousted (which he is) should also be clamoring for further NFL investigations to all 32 teams, league offices, and potentially shut them down for being complicit on the matter.
Don’t pick and choose, boycott the NFL until they make changes to stop hurtful (potentially) emails. Better monitor and record all locker room conversations too, have zero doubt that all kinds of inappropriate conversations that involve all the “ists” take place within the NFL’s place of business. And that’s currently, I can only imagine what was said back in the 60’s.
I’m glad you’re taking a stand to shut down the NFL. Good for you and good luck in your mission.