Two retired N.F.L. players who have filed dementia-related claims in the N.F.L. concussion settlement, and have accused the league of discriminating against Black players, want their own representative to attend a mediation aimed at addressing the use of race-based benchmarks to determine eligibility for payouts.
Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport argued in a lawsuit that the separate scoring curves — one for Black athletes, another for white players — used by neuropsychologists to evaluate dementia-related claims “explicitly and deliberately” discriminated against hundreds if not thousands of Black players. But last week, Judge Anita B. Brody of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed their lawsuit and ordered a mediator to address her concerns about the practice.