The moment Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts takes his first snap in Super Bowl LIX, expect a flood of calls to the U.S. federal government's new snitch line reporting a DEI in progress.
Except that switchboard might already be jammed, and email inboxes could already be overflowing with messages from viewers complaining about Ledisi belting out Lift Every Voice and Sing pregame, or hoping the feds can preempt Kendrick Lamar's halftime show.
I'm exaggerating, but those hypothetical complainers wouldn't be the first people to interpret a Trump administration executive order attacking the federal government's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a greenlight to eradicate Blackness everywhere. Days after the executive order, the U.S. Air Force announced it would stop showing a video on the Tuskegee Airmen as part of pilot training. They reversed the decision after a swift and loud backlash from the public, but the initial move sent the message.
If DEI is in the Trump administration's crosshairs, then so are Black history and African-American culture.
So credit the NFL for deciding not to whitewash the Super Bowl in response to the White House's full frontal assault on DEI. It's a low bar, but outfits like Target and The Smithsonian have chosen not to clear it, rolling back DEI initiatives even though the executive order covers the federal government and not private companies.
But even if the league wanted to unblacken its pregame entertainment, we'd still see racial progress on the field, where Hurts and Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes will duel in the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. The matchup marks just the second time in the league's 100-year history that its championship game has featured two Black quarterbacks.A pairing of the same two Black quarterbacks we saw in 2023 suggests a certain type of progress against racism in the pro sports world, but it's happening as the Trump administration hacks away at decades of hard-won civil rights progress.
But the success of Hurts, Mahomes and other Black quarterbacks exposes the reality that the current anti DEI trend is either illogical, racist, or some combination. DEI rollbacks are presented as a path back to judging people on merit, but pro sports show us that a true meritocracy needs a diverse talent pool.
NFL quarterbacks are a case in point.
In the 1984 season, 56 different quarterbacks started NFL games. Only one – Warren Moon – was Black. Of the 59 quarterbacks who started games this past season, 23 were Black.
If you're old enough to remember suggestions that Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Lamar Jackson switch to receiver when he turned pro, then you know prejudice still exists. But the quarterback position is more diverse than ever, and NFL teams didn't need to set diversity targets because it already had metrics like points, wins and losses. Hurts, Mahomes, Jackson and C.J. Stroud all move those numbers in the right direction, so they're NFL starters and NFL stars. Nobody ever handed them anything but a playbook.
Critics of DEI programs tend to portray them as unfair set-asides that advantage certain demographics, a bad-faith tilting of the playing field to ensure that the best jobs go to people who fit the right race and gender profile. Indeed, that kind of racial favouritism ruled pro sports for decades.
In their highest-profile form they were the "gentlemen's agreements" that kept most big-league pro sports segregated until after the Second World War. It's not hyperbole to point out that, before 1947, a significant percentage of MLB players had their jobs because they didn't have to compete against Black players to earn them. And as skill, finally, belatedly, supplanted skin colour as a top job requirement, the league's racial makeup transformed.
The two quarterbacks squared off in Super Bowl LIX, with Mahomes's Kansas City leaving victorious. (Getty Images)Race-based set-asides persisted. Some MLB teams would employ two Black players, and only two. Acquiring a third Black player meant one of the incumbents was heading to the minors. A modern DEI critic might complain that the team was reserving two roster spots for Black players; a more realistic reading is that they were hoarding 23 jobs for white ones, even with MLB-ready Black and Latino talent available.
If you can understand how broadening the talent search beyond white men strengthens pro sports teams, you can understand why modern DEI programs exist. It's not, as critics argue, to elevate the undeserving because they're the right colour. That's what prejudice does.
DEI initiatives function to make sure qualified people have a chance to compete for top jobs, and to encourage decision-makers not to backslide into old, familiar, prejudicial, counterproductive habits.It still matters on NFL sidelines. That's why the league's Rooney Rule, which mandates teams interview at least one minority candidate for co-ordinator and head coaching openings, remains in place. Clubs are still free to choose whoever they want, even if the decision backfires. As a Chicago Bears fan, I can tell you that some teams bungle these hires with frustrating, infuriating regularity. But the Rooney rule neutralizes the two most shopworn excuses for defaulting to hiring white people:
1) We couldn't find any qualified minorities.
2) We knew that minority candidate was qualified, but we didn't realize they were interested in this job.
Ahead of the 2018 NFL Draft, Lamar Jackson faced suggestions he could switch to playing receiver at the pro level despite being a prolific passer in college. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)For decades NFL teams used versions of those same exit ramps to turn away from Black quarterback prospects.
If you wanted to pretend a Black quarterback isn't qualified, you'd nit-pick the college system he played in, or gripe that he runs too much.
If he put up legit quarterback stats at a big time college program, you'd offer him a position switch, then act surprised when didn't accept.That was Moon, who was told by NFL scouts that he projected as a tight end, and opted to start his pro career in Canada instead.
The NFL's entrenched racism created an inefficiency in the quarterback market that the CFL gladly exploited. Whether or not racism exists in Canada is a different issue (spoiler alert: it does), but CFL teams weren't bigoted enough to turn away a cohort of quarterbacks with strong enough arms and swift enough legs to excel in three-down, wide-field football.
By 1983, the CFL had hosted three Grey Cup games featuring Black starting quarterbacks on both teams. In 2025, the NFL is on the cusp on just its second all-Black quarterback matchup. Teams have figured out that restricting their quarterback talent search to white players was a luxury they couldn't afford if they were serious about winning. A more diverse talent pool is, by definition, deeper.
So if the choice the anti-DEI crowd wants us to make is between merit and diversity, the evolution of the NFL quarterback position is an example of the solution.
There's nothing to choose.
The choice is both.