Good point. For the sake of argument, is this because for players to fit under the Heritage roster rule, they'd have to have the same nationality as the others that fit under the rule? What about the roster slots held by US citizens that must comprise all of the roster slots that are not international slots? Are international slots legal? Related point: So if, as a coach, I'm obsessed with bringing Brazilian flair to Real Salt Lake, am I potentially breaking the law if I say "I think Brazilian players will make us better", and then I go out and hire two of them?
Yes because international slots are really "players who need a visa to work in the U.S." slots. internationals who get their green card no longer count as internationals. The law does allow discrimination based on the necessity of a visa. Maybe, but hard to prove in court. Because you aren't looking for Brazilians, you are looking for the skill set of the Brazilian style of soccer.
This is fun It's like having my own fantasy team lawyer. OK - two more questions: So you're saying it is illegal to have 3 individuals covered under one international slot-group and 4 individuals covered under four other individual international slots, because only individuals from a given country can be covered under that umbrella international slot-group... But if the nationality that slot covers can be changed to any nationality at any time, just like the nationality of a player covered by a given international slot can change at any time, is it then illegal? If you're an international player with a green card, and you want to join a particular team, but you can't because they're out of international player slots, do you have a grievance against the league?
I am not a lawyer, just somebody who's followed MLS for many years. As long as you're limiting who can take a spot based on National origin you're in trouble. So your heritage spots are for Germans, but you have a Brazilian you want to sign. Now your spots are for Brazilians, are you firing the Germans because they aren't Brazilian? If you're an international with a green card you don't care about the number of international spots, because you count as a domestic player and don't take up an international spot.
J/K about the lawyer part, but you craft a good argument. So with the German/Brazilian example, It would be several Brazilians, otherwise I'd just use an individual international slot, and if I fired the Germans it would be because they weren't as good as the remaining players that hold international slots on the roster. I cede the point that then those players would have an argument that they should be able to compete for the right for those roster slots that are now given over to Brazilians to be given over to persons of their nationality. But don't surplus international players always have that argument based on the existing international slot rules, that they should be able to compete with the least skilled American on the team for a roster slot?
No, because the law allows teams to restrict spots based on the necessity of having a visa. I'm sure its a combination of the companies having added expense (lawyers and such to work through the visa requirements and paperwork) and good old political nationalistic pride in keeping American jobs for Americans. Legally its fair to say "Sorry, your Brazilian without a green card or other right to work in the u.S., so we're hiring an American" but its not legal to say "Sorry, you're a Brazilian and we're only hiring Germans now".
How about "Sorry, you're a Brazilian without a green card or other right to work in the U.S., we're only hiring Germans without a green card or other right to work in the U.S."? It seems to me that outsourcing companies do the equivalent of this all the time.
That's national origin discrimination. All non-green card holders have to be treated the same. Outsourcing companies hire people in other countries to do work in other countries, thus their hiring practices are outside the jurisdiction of US labor law.
Good! Let's take another tack: If I'm a marketing firm, and I'm marketing a product to the mexican-american community in, say, San Francisco, do I have the right to hire exclusively mexican-american spokespersons?
No. You can't discriminate against ANY nationality. You can only discriminate against nonimmigrants. This category includes people with work-visas. This is because their right to be in the country is dependent on you giving them a job and is generally limited by the government anyways.
Yes as I understand it, for at least two reasons. One, you can make the claim that their heritage is a essential part of the job requirement. I'm not sure how much that's been challenged in court but that's actually the weaker of the two reasons anyway. Secondly, for "roles" like that, acting, etc. the clauses don't apply the same way. If your script calls for an Korean farmer and you turn away a white American its not discrimination under the law. I don't know the exact parameters fo the law but there are exceptions. Also you still can't discriminate based on things not revealed in the role (you can't not hire Christians for your commercial if their religion doesn't apply to the commercial for example). Interesting note, when Walt Disney first opened Disneyland he called all his employees Cast Members, which allowed him to pick and choose which ones he put "on stage (working in public positions in the park) to project the image he wanted to project. Disney employees are still called Cast Members but I think that loophole allowing them to pick and choose has been closed.
I still want to mention that: 1) CUSA's sponsorships are down dramatically. 2) What little "attendance" they have is boosted by giving tickets to marching bands and including the totals from the Galaxy "away" games and double headers. They are WAYYYYY less then the "average" 13k at any given match. 3) They rent the HDC from AEG. FC Dallas may have attendance issues, but at least they make money from the stadium. 4) This whole thread can be summed up in one phrase: "Paint yourself into a corner." The concept was doomed, but MLS took the money when they needed it. Seriously, here's the litmus test to end all conversations: Would MLS allow Chivas USA into the league in 2013 with their stated plan? We ALL know this answer to this. Tommy Mack
Can you argue that hiring someone who hails from country X, whether US citizen, green card holder, or whatever, increases your income and the value of your brand in the market (because they are a public figure), and that national origin is therefore grounds to hire that person instead of someone from country Y? In other words, nationality can in some cases be connected to public appeal, which is integral to professional sport, because it is an entertainment industry. The purpose and value of a DP, for instance, isn't solely limited to the field of play. If actor X comes up for a role and Tom Cruse gets it, it isn't necessarily because Tom Cruse is a demonstrably better actor.
Good point, so this applies to WWE and the Globe Trotters. However, does it apply to competitive sports? I'm guessing that there is very little case law in this aspect.
Yeah, we're deep into the weeds here. Even if some of this stuff would be technically legal I'm guessing MLS doesn't want to become the test case for it.
Well, in the NFL there is a rooney rule in which an african american HAS to be interviewed for any upper management job. I think this is like a rooney rule but for Mexican American players.
The Rooney Rule is for head coaching positions and a few front office positions. It's actually for any minority and not just African Americans. The larger problem has become that minorities/former players are becoming position coaches, but there are very few who are made into coordinators or front office positions.
And, once again, it's a rule that requires interviews to include more than just white guys. It does not require hiring of a specific race or nationality.
Does this mean that for future games between the US and Mexico, that they'll be a shortage of racism or at least have posters be called out for it by you guys?
Once Dan Kennedy gets shipped out, Chivas has to be applauded for finding a way to make a team worse after they fire the coach.
Yeah, I'll do that. The whole idea of "race" is such loaded BS, and then to have people constantly misuse it - well, it's becoming a whole different kind of discrimination than it actually is. At some point words have to mean something. CUSA's ideas could be called discriminatory, but they can't be called racism. And a U.S./Mexico game has absolutely nothing to do with "race" and everything to do with nationality. Is bad blood in a Germany/Spain fixture "racist"? As far as discrimination goes, let's be honest and say that MLS' policy limiting international players to support "domestic" players is clearly discrimination. It's just discrimination that most Americans support and has been codified as legal in American law, as Jasonma and others have pointed out. Edit to add a link: Those that want to know where the modern idea of races - the one still codified in the U.S. Census - comes from might want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbach