Clinicians Worry NFL Concussion Settlements Discriminate Against Black Players

Multiple clinicians involved in determining concussion settlements for former NFL players believe the system could be discriminating against Black players, according to Pete Madden, Cho Park and Ryan Smith of ABC News. 

All players seeking compensation are given cognitive tests to determine the potential level of decline they might have suffered during their football careers. However, the NFL's program uses a process known as "race-norming," which compares scores within demographic groups and is then "adjusted to account for expected differences in age, gender, education—and race."

Former NFL players Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport filed a lawsuit against the league last August alleging racial bias built into the scoring system skewed payouts among the players.

Per Madden, Park and Smith, race-norming "is in use across several different medical fields as a supposed safeguard against misdiagnosis. But because these 'norms' assume that the average Black player starts at a lower level of cognitive functioning than the average white player at the outset of their careers, the former players say, Black players need to show larger cognitive declines than white players to qualify for compensation."

The NFL called the lawsuit "entirely misguided," but internal emails from clinicians appear to agree with the claim.

"Bottom line is that the norms do discriminate against Black players," one clinician wrote, via ABC News. "So now what? In this time of reckoning, like many professions, I think we need to look closely at the expected and unexpected ramifications of our practices."

Another clinician wrote that they are "feeling regretful for my culpability in this inadvertent systemic racism issue."

The NFL argued its policy is based on "widely accepted and long-established cognitive tests and scoring methodologies."

Since the 2013 settlement, the league has paid out more than $800 million to former players. However, Davenport has argued the system for determining payout still has significant issues.

"What the NFL is doing to us right now ... when they use a different scale for African Americans versus any other race?" Davenport said. "That's literally the definition of systematic racism."