The NFL ended a policy that assumed Black players had a lower cognitive function, which denied them settlements for head injuries

• The NFL has offically ended a policy known as "race-norming" due to a civil rights lawsuit.
• "Race-norming" is the assumption that Black players had a lower cognitive function than whites.
• The policy made it harder for retired Black players to get settlement checks for brain injuries.

The NFL agreed to stop using the practice "race-norming," which assumed Black players have a lower cognitive function than white counterparts, according to Maryclaire Dale of the Associated Press.

"Race-norming" has prevented some retired Black players from qualifying for compensation in the NFL's $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. In the original settlement, the NFL used a scoring algorithm for dementia testing that assumed Black men start with lower cognitive skills before the injury.

Black retirees would have had to score much lower than whites to qualify for a piece of the settlement.

For example, former Pittsburgh Steelers players Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport were denied compensation for brain injuries based on their scores in the league's cognitive test to judge mental deficiency. But they each would have qualified for compensation based on their scores if they were white.

Henry and Davenport were two of 50,000 former NFL players and family members of those players who signed the petition demanding equal compensation for Black former players who suffer from cognitive regression. The two ultimately filed a civil rights lawsuit which led to the NFL making the change on Wednesday.

Henry and Davenport initially filed a lawsuit, but it was thrown out by Senior U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody in Philadelphia. Brody later asked a magistrate judge to compile a report on the problem, which led to the petition's ultimate impact on the NFL's decision to make the policy change, according to the Associated Press.

More than 2,000 former players have applied for a piece of the settlement, but less than 600 have been compensated, according to a report released by the NFL. More than half of the players who have applied are black, according to the Associated Press.

Now, a new panel of neuropsychologists, which includes three Back doctors, will propose a new testing regime to the court that will offer fair evaluation for the mental cognitive function of Black players.

"Race-norming" has previously been used in medicine to evaluate socioeconomic factors that can affect someone's health. However, the way the NFL used it was too simplistic and caused disproportionate discrimination toward former Black players, according to UCSF Memory neurology professor Katherine Possin.

"Because every Black retired NFL player has to perform lower on the test to qualify for an award than every white player. And that's essentially systematic racism in determining these payouts," Possin told the Associated Press.

Lawyer Christopher Seeger negotiated the original settlement with the NFL in 2013 and said earlier this year that he found no evidence of racial bias in the settlement policies. However, Seeger apologized for that assessment on Wednesday.

"I am sorry for the pain this episode has caused Black former players and their families. Ultimately, this settlement only works if former players believe in it, and my goal is to regain their trust and ensure the NFL is fully held to account," Seeger said in a statement.