A judge on Friday approved a revised plan that would fix some of the damage done by race-norming in the NFL’s massive concussion settlement.
The plan allows Black ex-NFL players who had their concussion claims rejected to have their dementia tests rescored or completely redone — this time without racial bias. The dementia tests originally had race-norming baked right in, meaning that the scores for Black men were adjusted to account for “biological differences.”
Race-norming assumes that Black people have a lower level of cognitive function than white people, which made it difficult for retired Black players to show cognitive decline — a key symptom of dementia — when they were tested. It was originally developed as a rough way to account for differences in socioeconomic background, but according to experts who spoke to the Associated Press, it was “never meant to be used to determine payouts in a court settlement.”
But it was, and it led to numerous retired Black players having…