Robin DeLorenzo was hired as the third female NFL official in 2022, and she was terminated after three seasons in 2025. Her lawsuit, filed this week in Manhattan federal court, seeks reinstatement and unspecified damages.
According to Fox News, the league told DeLorenzo she was being terminated due to “documented underperformance,” but she believes the decision had more to do with her gender than her performance.
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Prior to her time in the NFL, DeLorenzo had 20 years of experience as an official. She has worked at all levels of the game, including high school football in New Jersey and Power Four college football.
DeLorenzo described a series of hostile incidents throughout her three seasons as an NFL official. She was not provided with gender specific uniform, instead being told to wear men’s clothing and “to let her ponytail show out the hole in the back of her hat (…) to make it clear a woman was on the field.” She reported senior officials shamed and harassed her, subjecting her to “profanity-laced trash talk.”
During one training camp, DeLorenzo’s boss made her sing in front of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ rookies and the officiating crew.
In 2024, the officiating crew chief required DeLorenzo to attend an officials training session meant for lower-level college officials who were first starting out in the job, something DeLorenzo said “no male official had ever been required to do.”
"She worked her way through two decades of officiating — breaking barriers, making history, and outperforming expectations at every level — only to be met with hostility, retaliation, and systemic inequality the moment she stepped into a league that claims to champion opportunities for women," the lawsuit said. "Instead of supporting one of the only women on its officiating staff, the NFL exposed her to unchecked harassment, denied her the resources given to men, manipulated her training and grading opportunities, and ultimately ended her career based on tainted evaluations created by the very people who discriminated against her.”
