This SHOULD be shocking...... but it is the NFL, so I am not shocked. I have long wondered how long until minorities take a pass on football.
"Race norming" mental decline is not an NFL thing, it's a medical thing. The concept became prevalent 20-30 years ago in diagnosing and treating dementia patients. And yes, it's wrong.
Minorities are passing more than ever -- Watson is making passes on the field and in the massage room.
It's used in research and education circles also - and not necessarily in a negative way. The NFL just seemed to have weaponized it to reject claims. It does seem weird that this isn't a bigger deal - but at the same time, I think the plaintiffs/NFLPA may also have signed off on it at some point. Or at least, the NFLPA apologized for it too - I'm not sure what they'd have to apologize for unless they had been part of allowing it.
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/health-disparities-race-norming This article does a decent job of explaining race-norming and the context with the NFL. Race-norming in medicine is "normal" and not necessarily always a bad thing. You could say that race-norming is why an African American would be prescribed a calcium channel blocker like Amlodipine for HTN instead of an ACE-Inhibitor like Lisinopril (unless Diabetes). This is based on a loose understanding that there are certain biochemical and metabolic differences between AA and other races. Race-norming also tells medical professionals that AA are more likely to develop CVD, HTN, and a myriad of other diseases. This may very well be due to the fact that there are socio-economic, inter & intrapersonal factors, healthcare disparities, and other social and ecological factors at play. Therefore, changing the prescription regimen doesn't address a potential underlying issue, but it does address the pharmacological efficacy problem. You can't always fix everything at once. Sometimes things don't exist for the soul purpose of objectifying race. Good on the NFL though, I guess if you take it at face value, because the context with which they were using race-norming was a dangerous and sketchy at best.
