NFL vows to eliminate ‘race-norming’ in concussion settlement

The National Football League has vowed to stop the practice of treating minority players differently when assessing brain injury claims.

Former NFL players Najeh Davenport and Kevin Henry sued the league in 2020 for “race-norming,” which assumes that Black players started out with lower cognitive function, thereby making it harder for Black retirees to show a deficit and qualify for payment.

League spokesperson Brian McCarthy said in a statement to The Hill on Wednesday that the NFL is committed to eliminating “race-based norms” in the program, adding that a panel which includes two female and three Black doctors have proposed a new testing regime. 

“Everyone agrees race-based norms should be replaced, but no off-the-shelf alternative exists and that’s why these experts are working to solve this decades-old issue,” McCarthy said in an email. “The replacement norms will be applied prospectively and retrospectively for those players who otherwise would have qualified for an award but for the application of race-based norms.”

The Hill last month reported in the increasing pressure the NFL was coming under over the practice. At the time, a spokesman for the league defended the settlement and the practice but expressed an openness to changing it going forward.

“The NFL nevertheless is committed to helping find alternative testing techniques that will lead to diagnostic accuracy without employing race-based norms,” the spokesman said in May. “As requested by the Court, the NFL is working with Class Counsel, and the parties’ respective medical experts, under the guidance of the federal magistrate judge, to that end. We understand that the Court intends to solicit the views of interested parties as part of the process.”

More than 2,000 retired players have filed for dementia claims, with fewer than 600 of those players receiving benefits.

The NFL did appeal some cases against players if their scores weren’t adjusted by race.

Updated on Thursday at 12:53 p.m.