Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill is in hot water again. Two former employees have sued him, alleging racial discrimination inside the franchise. This is not the first time his leadership style has drawn legal trouble. Once again, the allegations target the man running the entire show, not just low-level managers.
“Two former Cardinals employees have sued the team, owner Michael Bidwill, and COO Jeremy Walls on various claims, including racial discrimination. A federal judge has enforced the NFL’s controversial arbitration clause, for now,” Pro Football Talk posted on X.
A collective legal action was initiated in an Arizona state court on May 26 by former assistant coach Don Shumpert and former executive assistant Kendra Hogue, as reported by Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic. They named the Cardinals, Bidwill, and others as defendants.
Both Hogue and Shumpert are Black. The suit lists seven claims, including racial discrimination, retaliation, defamation, and constructive termination, which is when a worker is pushed to quit because of a hostile workplace.
Racial discrimination claims like these carry huge weight across the NFL. For years, the league has faced intense pressure over how minority employees and coaches are treated behind closed doors. When former staffers step forward publicly, it brings fresh scrutiny to front-office culture and shows how tough it still is for Black professionals to get fair pay and equal treatment in pro football.
Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Walls is also named. While Hogue served as his executive assistant, Walls made an announcement in August regarding his plans to step down at the conclusion of the 2026 season.
The legal action was quickly removed from state court. On June 1, the defendants successfully transferred the case to the federal system. Subsequently, on September 19, U.S. District Judge John Hinderaker referred the litigation to the NFL’s arbitration framework, reasoning that the employment-based nature of the conflict legally bound the parties to an arbitral resolution rather than a trial.
Based on notes on the court docket, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell gets to choose the arbitrator. Hinderaker also wants a status report filed every 120 days and asked to be told once arbitration wraps up. The Cardinals have denied the claims.
“The team strongly denies these claims and will prove they have no merit,” the Cardinals said in a statement provided to The Arizona Republic. “Because it is an active legal matter, the team will refrain from further comment.”
This isn’t the first time Bidwill has found himself in a legal fight, though. Former Cardinals executive Terry McDonough, his wife Lynette and daughter Caroline previously sued the team, its law firm Gallagher & Kennedy and PR firm Counterpoint for defamation.
That came after a 2024 NFL arbitrator ruled that the Cardinals defamed McDonough in a media statement accusing him of spousal abuse and neglecting his disabled daughter, which he denies. The team was ordered to pay nearly $3 million.
In 2025, federal judge Dominic Lanza dismissed the family’s defamation claims against the team and sent the law and PR firms’ claims to arbitration. McDonough’s other claims were dismissed too, and he had sought up to $125 million.
With that background in mind, let’s look at what Hogue and Shumpert are actually accusing Bidwill of in this latest lawsuit.
What led to Michael Bidwill being sued?
Hogue’s side of the story is about a short stretch of time. She worked for the Cardinals from September 9, 2024, to November 8, 2024, and her claims focus on how she was treated in those two months.
“During the course of her employment, Hogue was subjected to a toxic work environment characterized by retaliatory behavior, managerial dysfunction, and mistreatment, which materially altered the terms and conditions of her employment,” the lawsuit says.
It also states, “As an African American woman, Hogue was subjected to disparate treatment.”
The filing doesn’t spell out what that treatment looked like, but it argues the defendants allowed “working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person in Hogue’s position would have been compelled to resign.”
Shumpert’s complaint reaches further back. He joined the team in 2019 through the Bill Bidwill Coaching Fellowship and started as an offensive assistant.
According to him, head coach Kliff Kingsbury told him he’d been promoted to running backs coach in 2022. The team never explained the details of the new role, so he kept doing both jobs through training camp and into the season.
When he asked to raise his pay with Kingsbury and then general manager Steve Keim on September 26, 2022, they said they couldn’t increase it and told him to speak with Bidwill. He never got a raise. He was fired on October 3, 2022.
The suit says he faced “a discriminatory and hostile work environment,” where senior executives demeaned him openly and verbally. He has since been shut out of coaching and now works in financial services. It remains to be seen how this lawsuit will end for Bidwill.