Clinicians fear NFL's concussion settlement program protocols discriminate against Black playersData suggests race-based adjustments could have significant impact on payouts.
The NFL insists that its concussion settlement program does not require the clinicians who evaluate former players for payouts to make race a factor in their determinations. Several of those clinicians, however, appear to disagree, and some of them fear that the league’s recommended protocols discriminate against Black players.
In August, a group of neuropsychologists who measure cognitive decline in former NFL players seeking financial compensation through the league’s landmark settlement program took to their professional listservs to discuss some recent industry news. Two Black former players — defensive end Kevin Henry and running back Najeh Davenport — had filed a lawsuit against the NFL, accusing the league of “explicitly and deliberately” discriminating against Black players filing dementia-related claims.
The NFL has repeatedly dismissed the lawsuit as “entirely misguided,” claiming that the use of any so-called demographic corrections to interpret test results is left entirely up to “the sound discretion of the independent clinicians administering the tests in any particular case.”
But the former players are alleging that such corrections are, in effect, mandatory. And according to emails sent through private online forums, obtained by ABC News, some of those same clinicians lament that the league’s protocols supersede their professional judgement, sometimes leading to a “drastically different outcome” for former players seeking help.
One neuropsychologist claimed the league’s program manual offered no such flexibility: “I don't think we have the freedom to choose,” the clinician wrote. “If we do, apparently many of us have been doing it wrong.”
Another bemoaned their possible complicity in a system that perpetuated “racial inequity” in payouts: “Especially in the correct [sic] of our current state of affairs, I’m realizing and feeling regretful for my culpability in this inadvertent systemic racism issue,” the clinician wrote. “As a group we could have been better advocates.”
And another contended that while their “required reliance on these norms is spelled out in the manual,” it was still up to them to consider the consequences of their compliance: “Bottom line is that the norms do discriminate against Black players,” the clinician wrote. “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.”
In a pair of wide-ranging interviews with ABC News, which will be featured in a special edition of “Nightline” on Wednesday, Henry and Davenport blasted what they described as a two-pronged program that treats white players one way and Black players another.
“I just want to be looked at the same way as a white guy,” Henry told ABC News. “We bust chops together, bro. We went out together and we played hard together. You know what I mean? It wasn't a white or Black thing. We lost together. We won together.”
