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    Deshaun Watson's Lawyer Issues Denial of Assault Claims

    Since the quarterback’s initial denial on social media, an array of civil suits have been filed that accuse him of a pattern of coercive behavior and, in two cases, sexual assault.Allegations of assault and sexual misconduct against the Houston Texans star quarterback Deshaun Watson have mounted over the past week, as 16 women have filed civil suits against him and their lawyer has publicized the accusations on social media and in a news conference that was streamed online.Aside from an early denial of the first two claims, Watson has remained mostly silent. In the first substantive rebuttal to the accusations, Watson’s lawyer, Rusty Hardin, on Tuesday challenged the veracity of all the claims and described one of the two allegations of sexual assault as an attempt to blackmail his client.In a statement, Hardin blasted Tony Buzbee, the lawyer representing the women, saying he had “orchestrated a circuslike atmosphere by using social media to publicize 14 ‘Jane Doe’ lawsuits” to malign Watson’s reputation. Buzbee filed two additional suits on Tuesday.Watson’s attorney also said that he had “strong evidence” demonstrating that the first lawsuit claiming sexual assault was false, and he said that “calls into question the legitimacy of the other cases as well.”“I believe that any allegation that Deshaun forced a woman to commit a sexual act is completely false,” Hardin said.Since March 16, a total of 16 women have accused Watson of assault in civil lawsuits filed in Harris County, Texas, where he is a resident. According to the complaints, the incidents have taken place from March 2020 to this month. Although most are said to have occurred in Texas, two were said to have happened in Georgia, Watson’s home state, this month, and in California, where he was visiting in July 2020.The civil suits accuse Watson, 25, of engaging in a pattern of lewd behavior with women hired to provide personal services — coercing them to touch him in a sexual manner, exposing himself to women hired to do massages, or moving his body in ways that forced them to touch his penis. The suits that accuse him of sexual assault say that Watson pressured both women to perform oral sex during massages and that he grabbed one woman’s buttocks and vagina.Hardin’s statement referenced the first allegation of sexual assault, which is said to have occurred on Dec. 28, 2020. That day, according to the complaint, he coerced the woman to touch his genitals and perform oral sex. The woman was so upset, the complaint said, that she blacked out for a few minutes.The statement from Watson’s lawyer on Tuesday included a signed affidavit from Bryan Burney, the quarterback’s marketing manager for the past three years. The affidavit states that Burney spoke in January with a woman believed to be the plaintiff in the first claim of sexual assault. Burney said that the woman had asked him to pay her $30,000 on Watson’s behalf for “indefinite silence” about an encounter with Watson that Burney said she characterized to him as consensual.After Burney declined to pay, the statement said, he received a second call from a man who claimed to be the woman’s business manager. That man claimed something embarrassing would be revealed if Watson did not pay to keep it a secret. Watson, Burney said, did not meet the man’s demand.Hardin added in the statement that Watson’s team was “taking the allegations very seriously and we ask only that people not rush to judgment, that people not be unduly influenced by opposing counsel’s antics, and that they let fundamental fairness to both sides rule the day.” More

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    What to Know About the Lawsuits Against Deshaun Watson

    Seven women have filed civil lawsuits in Texas accusing the quarterback of a pattern of coercive and lewd behavior.Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson is the subject of seven civil suits filed in mid-March which accuse him of sexual assault. He was not charged criminally. Here’s where the cases stand:Who is Deshaun Watson?Deshaun Watson, 25, is a star quarterback for the Houston Texans, one of the best in the N.F.L. at his position.In September 2020, he signed a four-year contract extension worth nearly $111 million guaranteed, tying him to the Texans through 2025. But Watson, disenchanted by the team’s poor personnel moves and failure to uphold a pledge to include him in the search process for a new coach and general manager, has requested a trade. Watson has a no-trade clause, so he can choose his next destination. But the Texans stressed in January that they have no intention of trading him, creating an impasse for more than two months.In the past year, Watson grew into a leading voice among Black players who have protested against racial injustice and police brutality. During the 2020 off-season, he took part in a player-led video that urged the league to support protests by players, and after police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, Watson marched with his family — Floyd grew up in Houston — in a downtown protest.What is Watson being accused of?Seven women have accused Watson of assaults in civil lawsuits filed in Harris County, Texas. The lawyer representing them, Tony Buzbee, said as many as 15 other women have echoed claims of sexual misconduct and coercive behavior against Watson.Although the seven suits filed to date share many similarities, only one — in which Watson was said to have pressured a woman to perform oral sex during a massage — includes a claim of sexual assault, though all allege that Watson coerced the women to touch him in a sexual manner. All the suits accuse Watson of a pattern of lewd behavior in incidents that occurred from March to December 2020: exposing himself to women he had hired for massages; ordering the women to massage sensitive areas like the groin and inner thigh; and moving his body in ways that forced them to touch his penis.Meredith J. Duncan, who teaches tort law and criminal law at the University of Houston Law Center, defined civil assault as intentionally or knowingly touching someone in a way that a reasonable person would regard as offensive.“It just so happens in this case, the civil assault involves his genitals,” Duncan said. “But forcing another person to perform a sexual act, that’s a more aggravated form of sexual assault.”Watson hasn’t commented publicly since the night of March 16, when the first complaint was filed. He said on Twitter that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect” and that he had rejected “a baseless six-figure settlement demand” made by Buzbee before the first suit was filed.Rusty Hardin, who represents Watson, issued a statement on March 19 calling the allegations against his client “meritless.” That same day, Watson’s agent, David Mulugheta, publicly defended his client in social media posts.Will Watson face criminal charges?The Houston Police Department said in a statement March 19 that it was “unaware of any contact between HPD and Houston attorney Tony Buzbee regarding the allegations contained in his recently filed lawsuits and no incident reports regarding these allegations have been filed in our jurisdiction.”Will the N.F.L. take any action?The league opened an investigation into Watson’s conduct on March 18. In a letter addressed to Buzbee, Lisa Friel, a special counsel for investigations at the league, requested the cooperation of the accusers. A league spokesman said the matter was under review in relation to the N.F.L.’s personal conduct policy. That policy governs off-field behavior involving players and coaches.The Texans said in a statement the same day that they would “continue to take this and all matters involving anyone within the Houston Texans organization seriously” and that the team would not comment further until the league’s investigation had ended, a process with no public timeline.Who is Tony Buzbee?Tony Buzbee is a Houston plaintiffs lawyer who has worked on personal injury cases for years but is perhaps most well-known for his involvement in mass tort and class action cases, including the litigation following Hurricane Ike and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a decade ago. He doesn’t appear to have represented many women in cases involving sexual assault.A former marine, Buzbee flaunts his outsize personality and wealth on social media. The first two words on the website for Buzbee’s law firm are “Just Win” and he sports a tattoo of a shark on his right forearm.Although he has said he does not support the Texans, Buzbee, a Texas A&M graduate, in 2014 put up 10 billboards urging the team’s now-deceased owner Bob McNair to draft Johnny Manziel, an Aggies quarterback; McNair didn’t take his advice. Buzbee lives on the same tony Houston street as Texans chairman Cal McNair, but said in a news conference that he does not know McNair. Buzbee also unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Houston in 2019.Who is Rusty Hardin?A former Texas state prosecutor who became a defense lawyer, Rusty Hardin has represented numerous prominent clients, from star athletes to the accounting firm Arthur Andersen in the Enron scandal. He also worked in the independent counsel’s office in the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.Among the athletes he has defended are the pitcher Roger Clemens, against perjury charges in 2012; the N.F.L. running back Adrian Peterson, who was accused of felony child abuse in 2014; and the N.B.A. star James Harden, who was accused in 2017 of paying four people to attack and rob Moses Malone, Jr., the son of the Hall of Fame N.B.A. player. More

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    Tony Buzbee, Lawyer for Deshaun Watson's Accusers, Addresses Skeptics

    “This case is about female empowerment, taking the power back,” said Tony Buzbee, who represents seven women in lawsuits accusing the Texans quarterback of sexual assault.Tony Buzbee, the lawyer representing the seven women who have accused the Houston Texans star quarterback Deshaun Watson of sexual assault in civil lawsuits, on Friday spoke publicly for the first time since the allegations emerged this week. Buzbee forcefully challenged skepticism about the claims of assault, which he said had been echoed by as many as 15 other women, and about the timing of the lawsuits filed so far.The claims have surfaced against the backdrop of Watson’s request to be traded from the Texans — whose executives have so far refused to honor his wishes — and could dampen other teams’ interest in a player regarded as one of the best in the N.F.L. at his position. The accusations have also been broadcast by an audacious personal injury attorney who has little or no history with such cases and who has used Instagram and Facebook to solicit potential clients.All of the complaints, filed in Harris County, Texas, accuse Watson of a pattern of lewd behavior: exposing himself to women he had hired for massages; dictating that they work on sensitive areas like the groin and inner thigh; and moving his body in ways that caused his penis to touch them.“The case ain’t about money, and it’s certainly not about seeking publicity or fame,” Buzbee said at a news conference at his firm’s office in downtown Houston. “I personally don’t need it, and these women don’t want it. This case is about female empowerment, taking the power back.”The accusations, which first surfaced on Tuesday night, have engaged two of Houston’s better-known lawyers in a legal fracas that centers on one of the city’s most beloved athletes. The N.F.L. is investigating the accusations against Watson, and Buzbee said he would hand over files to the Houston Police Department for potential criminal investigations.The Houston Police Department said in a statement Friday that it was “unaware of any contact between HPD and Houston attorney Tony Buzbee regarding the allegations contained in his recently filed lawsuits and no incident reports regarding these allegations have been filed in our jurisdiction.”After Buzbee’s news conference, Rusty Hardin, who represents Watson, issued a statement calling the allegations against his client “meritless,” but declined to comment in detail until next week, when “we’ve completed our review of the numerous, evolving allegations from Mr. Buzbee.”Watson, 25, hasn’t commented publicly about the allegations since he posted to Twitter on Tuesday night that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect.”Deshaun Watson hasn’t commented publicly about the allegations since he posted to Twitter on Tuesday night that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect.”Darron Cummings/Associated PressOne accuser said in her complaint that Watson had tried kissing her on the mouth, while another said he ejaculated during a massage. According to another complaint, Watson, after contacting the woman through an Instagram direct message, spoke with her on the phone before his appointment and said, “I make a lot of massage therapists uncomfortable and it’s really hard for me to find someone who will meet my needs.”The incidents, according to the lawsuits, occurred from March to December last year. Buzbee first alluded to the allegations against Watson on Instagram on Tuesday night. The post was accompanied by a photo of a smiling Watson.A former Marine, Buzbee lives an outsize life. He has an office on the 73rd floor of the tallest building in Houston and drives a Ferrari. He also ran for mayor in 2019.He has worked on personal injury cases for years, but is perhaps best known for his involvement in mass tort and class action cases, including the litigation following Hurricane Ike and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a decade ago. He does not appear to have represented many women in sexual assault and harassment cases.Buzbee’s reputation for bluster and, depending on one’s view, grandstanding, is not new. In the 1990s, when he was a law student at the University of Houston, he sat in the second row in a class taught by John Mixon, then a professor there.Mixon called Buzbee one of the most confident students he had encountered in his decades of teaching. Buzbee had a knowing smile, and when he spoke, he did so with authority.“No professor would have tried to intimidate him,” Mixon said.The Texas legal community is known for showy lawyers, including many who come from humble backgrounds and have a street-fighting bravado that defines their approach to the profession. “The bookworm lawyer should probably go to Wall Street or corporate practice,” Mixon said. “These guys will eat them alive.”Indeed, the first two words on the website for Buzbee’s law firm are “Just Win.” A photo on his Facebook page includes a silver sculpture in the shape of a shark. On Friday, Buzbee flaunted his fearlessness, saying that he once sued the sheikh of Abu Dhabi and that he had received at least 10 death threats in this case.He then invited anyone who might have been assaulted or harassed by Watson to contact his office.Hardin has represented his share of high-profile athletes, including defending the pitcher Roger Clemens against perjury charges in 2012 and representing the N.F.L. running back Adrian Peterson, who was accused of felony child abuse in 2014.Watson’s agent, David Mulugheta, publicly defended his client in social media posts Friday.“Sexual assault is real. Victims should be heard, offenders prosecuted,” Mulugheta wrote on Twitter. “Individuals fabricate stories in pursuit of financial gain often. Their victims should be heard, and those offenders also prosecuted. I simply hope we keep this same energy with the truth.”Mulugheta’s post was criticized on social media for its characterization of the frequency of false claims, which studies have found to be rare, at a rate from 2 to 10 percent of all reports of sexual assault.Still, Buzbee’s very public approach to soliciting clients has raised questions about his strategy. He acknowledged that “when you make these allegations, the first thing that happens is people say it’s a money grab.” Like it or not, he added, “people blindly follow sports and are loath to believe victims.”Kim Gandy, the past president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said Buzbee’s efforts to raise the profile of his cases and to invite more victims to step forward may be intended to bolster each woman’s claim.“Just from history, it’s very clear that athletes, especially beloved local athletes, get the benefit of the doubt unless the evidence is overwhelming,” Gandy said. “Sad to say, you need multiple cases to prove one.” More

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    N.F.L. Opens Investigation Into Accusations Against Deshaun Watson

    Three women have filed lawsuits against the Houston Texans quarterback, accusing him of sexual assault.The N.F.L. on Thursday began investigating the conduct of the Houston Texans star quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has been accused in civil lawsuits of sexually assaulting three female massage therapists. The lawsuits were filed this week in Harris County, Texas.In a letter addressed to Tony Buzbee, the Houston plaintiffs’ lawyer representing all three women, Lisa Friel, a special counsel for investigations at the league, requested the cooperation of the accusers. Buzbee posted the letter to Instagram. A league spokesman said the matter was under review in relation to the N.F.L.’s personal conduct policy. That policy governs off-field behavior involving players and coaches.The Texans said in a statement Thursday that they would “continue to take this and all matters involving anyone within the Houston Texans organization seriously” and that the team would not comment further until the league’s investigation had ended. The N.F.L. often takes months to complete its investigations, which include interviews with accusers and N.F.L. employees, as well as law enforcement officials.Earlier on Thursday, Buzbee said on Instagram that a total of nine women had come forward with accusations against Watson, who has not spoken publicly about the allegations since he posted a statement to Twitter on Tuesday night, after the first complaint against him had been filed. Watson said that he had “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect” and that he had rejected “a baseless six-figure settlement demand” made by Buzbee before the first suit was filed.The third complaint, filed Wednesday night, echoed descriptions of behavior detailed in the two other suits filed against Watson. It said that Watson, 25, had pressured the woman to perform oral sex during a massage on Dec. 28 at an office building in Houston.Watson, who contacted the woman through a direct message on Instagram, started to aggressively dictate how she should massage him, the complaint said, and told her to work on his hamstrings, inner thighs and “inner glutes.” Watson then instructed her to move her hand across his genitals, the complaint said, and pushed her mouth toward his penis. According to the complaint, the woman was so shaken that she blacked out for a few minutes. Watson got dressed and left without apologizing, the complaint said.Watson has hired Rusty Hardin, a prominent defense lawyer also based in Houston. Hardin has defended other well-known athletes in the area, including Roger Clemens and James Harden. In a phone interview, Hardin declined to discuss the case and said only that he was still learning the details.After the league finishes its investigation, Watson could be fined or suspended if he is found to have violated the league’s personal conduct policy. He could appeal any penalties.In 2014, the league began hiring its own professional investigators, including Friel, a former prosecutor in New York City, to review allegations of bad behavior off the field, particularly related to sexual assault and domestic violence. Before then, the league typically relied on law enforcement agencies and resolutions in the courts to decide whether to penalize anyone.Ken Belson contributed reporting. More

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    Deshaun Watson Accused of Sexual Assault in Civil Suits

    Lawsuits filed Tuesday and Wednesday accused the Houston Texans quarterback of misconduct during massages last year. Watson said in a statement Tuesday that he had never “treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect.”Deshaun Watson, the star quarterback of the Houston Texans, has been accused of sexually assaulting two massage therapists last year, according to two civil suits filed this week in Harris County, Texas.In the first complaint, filed late Tuesday, a woman accused Watson, 25, of accosting her and pressuring her to have sex with him during a massage at her home in Houston. The woman said Watson had responded to an advertisement for her massage services and had asked if she would be the only person home when he arrived. Watson denied the accusation in a statement posted to his Twitter account Tuesday night.On Wednesday, Watson was accused in a second complaint, by another woman who said that last year he pressured her to have sex with him during a massage.According to the first complaint, on March 30, 2020, Watson went to the woman’s home and, once on the massage table wearing only a small towel, instructed the woman to focus on his groin. Watson, according to the complaint, “moved his body so he could expose himself more.”The woman ended the massage abruptly and asked him to leave, the complaint said. She claimed that Watson had suggested that he could ruin her reputation if she tried to ruin his by speaking publicly about the encounter.Watson later sent a text message to the woman to apologize, according to the complaint. She did not respond.In a statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday night, Watson said that he “never treated any woman with anything other than the utmost respect” and that he looked forward to clearing his name. Watson also said that he had rejected “a baseless six-figure settlement demand” made before the accuser’s lawyer filed the lawsuit.The accusers seek “minimal compensatory damages,” according to the complaints. After submitting the first filing on Tuesday, Tony Buzbee, a high-profile and flamboyant plaintiffs lawyer in Houston who is representing both accusers, wrote on Instagram that the case was not about money but about “stopping behavior that should be stopped.”Buzbee, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Houston in 2019, did not describe the accusations against Watson in that Instagram post, but he separately told a Houston television reporter on Tuesday that “Watson went too far” with the first woman who had been giving him a massage.According to the second complaint, Watson contacted a massage therapist in Atlanta in August and made specific requests for what he wanted in a massage. Watson agreed to pay to fly the woman to Houston, and they met at The Houstonian Hotel in a suite Watson had reserved, the complaint said.Watson immediately disrobed, according to the complaint, and the woman asked him to cover himself. Watson became increasingly suggestive, urging the massage therapist to perform sexual acts, the complaint said, adding that she stopped the massage and Watson grabbed her. The woman left the room and went directly to the airport, according to the complaint, and Watson paid her for the massage but did not reimburse her for her flights.Several months later, Watson contacted the woman and said he was in Atlanta and asked if she was available, according to the complaint. She did not respond.The Texans said in a statement that they became aware of a lawsuit involving Watson through social media on Tuesday night. “This is the first time we heard of the matter, and we hope to learn more soon.”“The N.F.L. is aware of the reports and will decline further comment at this time,” Brian McCarthy, an N.F.L. spokesman, said Wednesday.Watson is one of the league’s best and most recognizable players, who during a 2020 off-season of social and political turmoil called for racial justice in a player-led video that urged the N.F.L. to support players’ protests. In early June, about a week after the police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, Watson marched with the family of Floyd — who grew up in Houston — to protest police brutality.The sexual assault accusations come as Watson faces an uncertain future in Houston. In September, he signed a four-year extension to stretch his contract through 2025, but he has now requested a trade, vowing never to play for the Texans again. The team went 4-12 in 2020, with Watson throwing for the most yardage and touchdown passes of his career, even as the franchise replaced its head coach and general manager and cut ties with popular players.Texans executives stressed in January that they had no intention of dealing Watson, who, with a no-trade clause, can influence where he next plays. David Culley, who was hired as the Texans’ coach this off-season, told reporters in Houston last Thursday that the Texans were “very committed” to Watson, but he also said during a March 11 podcast interview that Watson is “our starting quarterback as of right now,” a quotation suggesting his status with the team might change. On Tuesday, the Texans prepared for that possibility, if not likelihood, by agreeing to sign the veteran free-agent quarterback Tyrod Taylor. More

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    Black N.F.L. Players Want New Advocate in Concussion Settlement

    Players said the lawyer for the N.F.L. retiree class knew that race-based criteria were used to deny Black players’ dementia claims. A review of eight such rejections seems to support their argument.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.The players are seeking a new representative because they said Christopher Seeger, the lawyer for more than 20,000 former players in the class action settlement, knew about the abuse of race-based benchmarks as early as 2018 and did not address the issue.“It is not realistic to expect that concerns about race-norming will be addressed effectively by parties who do not view the current use of race-norming as a problem,” Henry and Davenport’s lawyer wrote in their request.The players say that Black former players may have had their claims denied because the benchmarks used to assess rates of cognitive decline deliberately make it harder for them to receive payouts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, an accusation Seeger denied in a phone interview on Tuesday with The New York Times.Seeger said he was aware of a handful of objections to race-norming in the past few years. He said he intervened in at least one case and that the player received a $1.5 million payout as a result. However, “there has not been a systemic attempt to mistreat Black players in the settlement,” he said.To remove any ambiguity, though, Seeger said he would fight to have race-norming entirely stripped from the settlement.“I need the players to believe in me, I need them to believe in the settlement and I need them to believe they are treated fairly,” he said.Suspicions remain. As the representative for all 20,000 players in the settlement, Seeger signed off on the use of race-based benchmarks in 2014, when the settlement was being approved. The N.F.L. and Seeger note that the use of race norms is not mandatory, though Seeger acknowledged that some doctors charged with evaluating players may be under the misguided perception that it is.Kevin Henry, a longtime defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is one of two Black players who have petitioned for a new representative for retired players in the N.F.L.’s landmark concussions settlement.Matthew Odom for The New York TimesThe New York Times reviewed the confidential records of eight Black former players whose claims of dementia were denied. In the cases, which date to 2018, diagnoses made without regard to race showed significant enough decline in function for the players to be eligible for payouts.But a second doctor tossed out those diagnoses because the initial doctors had not used the race norms developed by Dr. Robert Heaton that have been standard in settlement claims.“The NFL guidelines are very specific in requiring the use of the Heaton norms for several tests,” an appeals doctor wrote in denying a dementia diagnosis for a player whose career spanned the 1990s and 2000s. To illustrate the point, the doctor listed the player’s test scores after race-based benchmarks were applied to show there was no “evidence of significant cognitive decline.”Lawyers who represent dozens of Black former players said that Black players with similar test scores as white players have been disqualified after racial benchmarks were used, a violation of their civil rights.“Unlike many civil rights cases, the use of Heaton’s race-based norms is discriminatory on its face,” Justin Wyatt, a lawyer for more than 100 players, wrote in a confidential filing in 2019 after one of his clients had his dementia diagnosis overturned. “By definition, Heaton’s race based norms have the effect of treating blacks differently than whites.”It is unclear how many Black players may have been misdiagnosed or had their diagnoses overturned. Cyril Smith, a lawyer for Henry and Davenport, claimed that white players are getting their dementia claims approved at two to three times the rate of Black players.But Smith was unable to substantiate his claim because, he said, Seeger and the N.F.L. have not shared any data on the approval rates of dementia claims by white and Black players.Seeger said this week that he will release that data once his investigation into the use of racial benchmarks in the settlement is completed in the coming weeks and that any claim that was “improperly affected by race-norming” will be reviewed.Smith and Wyatt said the only way to ensure that Black players’ claims have not been mishandled is to have every one of their neuropsychological exams rescored without the use of racial benchmarks. More than 7,000 former players took free neuropsychological and neurological exams offered in the settlement. Some of them were told they did not have dementia and may be unaware of how their exams were scored.It is unclear whether the N.F.L. will approve having every player’s exams rescored because the payouts that could result would be worth potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars each. More than $800 million in claims have already been approved for a range of neurological and cognitive diseases, and Seeger expects that amount to top $1 billion.The N.F.L. said in a statement that there is “no merit to the claim of discrimination,” citing the use of demographic adjustments as common practice in such examinations. It contended that the number of players potentially affected by the use of race-based benchmarks is a fraction of what has been alleged because, among other reasons, “many claims were denied for reasons that have nothing to do with the norms and any rescoring would have no impact on those denials.”The league added: “The N.F.L. nevertheless is committed to helping find alternative testing techniques that will lead to diagnostic accuracy without relying on race-based norms.”To assess cases of dementia, doctors must estimate what a person’s cognitive skills were years ago and compare them to the patient’s current condition. In theory, race-norms are designed to help doctors approximate the cognitive skills of Black and white people in the past.But using race to estimate one’s cognition is fraught because it does not account for factors like a person’s health, education or economic background. Many people — such as those who come from biracial families — do not fit neatly into a single racial category. N.F.L. players are also a unique group because almost all have attended at least three years of university. Comparing players to larger pools of white and Black Americans could be misleading, experts said.“Among the scientific community, it is now widely recognized that race/ethnicity represents a crude proxy for lifelong social experiences, and biologically based racial differences in I.Q. have been debunked,” Dr. Katherine Possin, of the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California San Francisco, wrote in the journal JAMA Neurology in December. “Even with the best norms, the diagnosis of cognitive disorders should not be decided based on a plug-and-play formula of cognitive test scores.”The debate over the use of race norms is not unique to the N.F.L. settlement. In the past, their use has led, intentionally or not, Black patients being denied treatment for many medical conditions, Darshali Vyas, Leo Eisenstein and David Jones wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in August.The doctors said that problems with race-norming also exist in the criminal justice system, where it is used to help determine police intervention in communities and prison sentences. Some members of Congress want to eliminate algorithms that discriminate against women and people of color by deciding everything from the type of advertisements people see online to how their applications for jobs, credit cards and other products are treated.“Prior forms of racial discrimination based on human biases are now being embedded into algorithms that appear to be race-neutral but aren’t because they are based on data and racial profiling that went on in the past,” said Dorothy Roberts, a professor of Africana Studies, law and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the use algorithms. “Technology can be used to promote equality or perpetuate inequality. It depends on who’s in control of it and what data they are putting into the algorithms.” More

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    NFL's Concussion Settlement Will Look at Racial Bias in Payouts

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.F.L. Asked to Address Race-Based Evaluations in Concussion SettlementMediation in the case could force a reopening of hundreds of denied dementia claims from Black players if race-based evaluation benchmarks are thrown out.Najeh Davenport is one of two retired N.F.L. players who brought suits alleging that the race-based benchmarks for evaluating dementia claims in the league’s concussions settlement were discriminatory.Credit…Jeffery Salter for The New York TimesMarch 9, 2021Updated 8:08 p.m. ETThe judge overseeing the landmark N.F.L. concussion settlement ordered a mediator to look into concerns about the league’s use of separate scoring curves — one for Black athletes, another for white players — used by doctors to evaluate dementia-related claims that retired players say “explicitly and deliberately” discriminated against hundreds if not thousands of Black players.The mediation between the N.F.L. and the lawyers representing the 20,000 or so retired players covered in the settlement comes after two retired Black players, Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport, filed a civil rights suit and a suit against the settlement in August that called for an end to the practice of race-normed benchmarks to assess their claims of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Both cases were dismissed but lawyers for the two players are planning to appeal.Their allegation of systematic discrimination shined a harsh light on the settlement reached in 2015. The payouts from the settlement have since been plagued by delays, predatory lenders, accusations of fraud and a lack of transparency. Criticisms of the race-based evaluation policies come at a critical time for the N.F.L., as it seeks to address racial inequity and social concerns raised by Black players, who make up about 70 percent of active players on the league’s rosters.After the suits were filed, four members of Congress requested data from the N.F.L. to determine if Black players were being discriminated against. (The N.F.L. declined to share.) Last month, an ABC News report included correspondence between doctors hired to evaluate retired players in which the neuropsychologists raised concerns that race-norming discriminated against Black players. This month, more than a dozen wives of Black retired N.F.L. players sent the judge a petition with nearly 50,000 signatures calling for an end to race-norming.For now, the mediation keeps their complaints alive.The judge overseeing the settlement, Anita B. Brody of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, dismissed the lawsuits because they were an “improper collateral attack” on the settlement. Brody expressed concern about the race-based benchmarks the league’s doctors use, but provided no specifics to guide the mediator, who must “address the concerns relating to the race-norming issue.”A magistrate judge will serve as mediator between the N.F.L. and Christopher Seeger, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs who represents the entire class of 20,000 or so retired players. There is no timeline for the sides to reach any agreement.Lawyers for Henry and Davenport, as well as the wives of former players, expressed doubt that Seeger will fairly represent Black players’ interests in the mediation. The N.F.L. and Seeger, they said, introduced the use of race-norming into the settlement agreement in 2017 and have no incentive to admit now that it is flawed.“We are deeply concerned that the Court’s proposed solution is to order the very parties who created this discriminatory system to negotiate a fix,” said Cyril Smith, a lawyer for Henry and Davenport. “The class of Black former players whom we represent must have a seat at the table and a transparent process, so that we are not back in the same place four years from now dealing with another fatally flawed settlement.”Christopher Seeger, left, is the lead attorney for about 20,000 former N.F.L. players who reached a settlement with the league over concussions. Some players are now questioning whether he can advocate on behalf of Black players.Credit…Matt Rourke/Associated PressAmy Lewis, whose husband, Ken Jenkins, played in the N.F.L., was equally skeptical. Leaving the N.F.L. and Seeger to work out an agreement is “giving the fox another chance to guard the hen house,” she said in a letter to Judge Brody sent on behalf of more than a dozen other wives of N.F.L. players. “How can any of us have any faith that the violating parties are not going to, once again, bury this and deny civil rights to our husbands?”Lewis said the group would ask the Department of Justice and Congress to launch an investigation into “civil rights violations and possible collusion” between the N.F.L. and Seeger.In a statement, Seeger said he has “not seen any evidence of racial bias in the settlement program,” but “continues to review claims to determine if any claim was inappropriately denied as a result of application of these adjustments.”But he said that race-based demographic adjustments should be scrapped and players who had their claims denied because of race-norming should have their tests scored again without the race-based adjustments if there was evidence of discrimination.“This means eliminated and gone from the settlement,” Seeger said in a statement. Some lawyers remain skeptical that Seeger, who previously denied the existence of any discrimination, will push the N.F.L. hard enough to re-evaluate the scores of the thousands of Black players who have been tested and may not even know why they were excluded, a process that could lead to hundreds of players eventually qualifying for payments each potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.“It’s not hard to do, but it could be expensive for the N.F.L.,” said Justin Wyatt, who represents more than 100 retired players in the settlement. “We need to search for where people have been discriminated against, and that means rescoring every African-American player. It’s incumbent on us to make sure this process is discrimination-free.”Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and two members of the House asked the N.F.L. for data on race-norming, said, “The league has failed to produce a shred of scientific evidence supporting the absurd claim that using this race-based formula somehow helps Black former players, instead of unfairly preventing them from getting benefits.”He added: “The N.F.L. is out of excuses — it needs to drop this racist formula immediately.”Thus far, the N.F.L. has paid more than $765 million to 1,189 players with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive and neurological diseases. However, far more players have had their claims denied, audited or withdrawn, including about 70 percent of the claims for dementia.In a statement, the N.F.L. said it was pleased with the judge’s decision to dismiss the cases and looked forward to working with the mediator, Magistrate Judge David R. Strawbridge, “to address the Court’s concerns.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Why Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports of the TimesWhy Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super BowlThe Buccaneers receiver has been one of the most electrifying players in the N.F.L., but he is facing accusations of sexual assault and harassment.Antonio Brown of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been one of the best receivers in the N.F.L., but has faced serious accusations of abuse against women.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesFeb. 6, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ETGet over it.That was the message Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown tried to convey this past week.The past doesn’t matter, he seemed to say. With the Super Bowl upon us, the only concern should be about his ability to catch passes on Sunday.Brown’s preferred talking points were his love for quarterback Tom Brady, his team’s drive to beat the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs, and his comeback.That comeback did not involve an injury that eroded his electrifying talent on the field. Those skills have remained sufficiently intact for Brown, 32, to find a plush spot in the N.F.L., in spite of the history he did not want to discuss at a requisite pre-Super Bowl news conference.“I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not a focus of this game,” he said.Those things include withering verbal abuse aimed at the mother of three of his children and recorded on video. And an accusation of sexual harassment that was described in detail in a national magazine. And a looming lawsuit accusing him of rape, a claim that Brown has vociferously denied.Now, he is one win from a championship ring after off-the-field trouble sent his career into one of the most stunning tumbles experienced by a star athlete in recent memory.Tampa Bay gambled on him in a way that no other team dared, signing Brown to a one-year contract in October after he had been out of the game for a season and a half. The Buccaneers did not heed commentators who, looking at the pattern of trouble around Brown, said he needed time away from the league — possibly for good, but at least until his lawsuit was resolved.The team also chose to look past the #MeToo movement and its fundamental lesson: Women with stories of pain, and of powerlessness in their dealings with famous men, should be heard and taken seriously.Let’s remember that one in four women are subjected to abuse by intimate partners during their lifetimes, according to a government report. Let’s think of what they endure every time they see athletes like Brown, with unresolved accusations around them, take the field.Let’s listen to Brenda Tracy, who describes herself as the survivor of a 1998 gang rape by a group of men that included two Oregon State football players. The players weren’t criminally charged, but they were suspended by the coach for making “a bad choice.” Tracy became an advocate for abused women, working toward change by sharing her story with anyone who will listen. Colleges across the country have hired her to speak to their athletic teams.“I won’t be watching the Super Bowl this year,” she told me. “With Antonio Brown out there, it’s just too much.”Ahead of the big game, Brown characterized himself as a changed man — humbled, grateful, and in control. He spoke in quiet, careful tones. He gave the sense that he sees the accusations as a chance to prove that he can conquer adversity, mostly by catching Brady’s passes.“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate,” Brown said.Tom Brady said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” as Patriots teammates. Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressWhat he really wanted was to move on.Let’s not. Let’s look at the claims, made by a personal trainer named Britney Taylor, in the lawsuit.In court filings, Taylor said that Brown assaulted her twice in 2017. She also asserted that Brown raped her in 2018.Through his legal team, the wide receiver has denied the accusations. He has countersued, accusing Taylor of defamation. Brown and Taylor were involved in a “consensual personal relationship,” his lawyer said in a statement.It is important to remember that the court proceedings can still be avoided if the two parties reach a settlement. It is not a criminal trial, in which Brown would face the possibility of prison.But Britney Taylor isn’t alone.In a Sports Illustrated article, an artist made detailed accusations of sexual harassment by Brown. The wide receiver also once targeted the mother of three of his children with a profane tirade and then posted a video of the incident on social media.On Twitter in 2018, he threatened a reporter from ESPN’s The Undefeated who wrote an article about Brown’s thorny personal life and turbocharged social media use. Brown ended up apologizing through a statement: “It is not OK to threaten anyone, and I need to be better spiritually and professionally.”That year he also settled a lawsuit that accused him of throwing heavy furniture from his 14th-floor apartment and nearly hitting a toddler.Brown’s exasperating behavior as a teammate prompted the Pittsburgh Steelers to trade him to the Oakland Raiders in 2019. Just before the start of the season, the Raiders dumped him for similar reasons.He landed briefly in New England, early in Brady’s final season with the Patriots. The lawsuit accusing Brown of rape soon became public, followed by the artist’s accusations of harassment. His third employer of that year cut him loose.Brady, who said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” in New England, endorsed Tampa Bay’s decision to bring the receiver aboard midway through this season. When Brown arrived in town, he initially lived in Brady’s home.Yet Brown and the Buccaneers seem like an odd pairing. The team has two full-time female coaches, and there were only eight in the entire league this season. The Women’s Sports Foundation has honored Coach Bruce Arians for supporting women in the N.F.L.But Arians proved that talent matters more than principle.Sadly, that’s too often the bottom line for male stars in major sports. If you are accused of abusing or harassing women and are easy to replace, your job is probably gone. It doesn’t take a conviction, trial or arrest. (See Jared Porter, the former New York Mets general manager who was fired after accusations that he had repeatedly sent inappropriate texts to a female reporter.)If you are a star, well, your entitlement is virtually unlimited.Brown signed with the Buccaneers just after completing an eight-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The reason for that penalty? He had pleaded no contest to burglary and assault charges after a dispute with a truck driver.He had every opportunity to express remorse for that incident this past week. He did not. So again, let’s listen instead to women, to people who won’t be in front of a huge global audience this weekend.Mindy Murphy runs The Spring of Tampa Bay, the largest shelter serving domestic violence survivors in Hillsborough County, home to the Buccaneers.When the N.F.L. tried to change its culture a few years ago, after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was caught striking his fiancée, Murphy helped conduct training with the Buccaneers on abuse.Now she feels disillusioned.Seeing Brown chase a Super Bowl ring is a “disservice to what survivors have experienced,” she said. “When a team in the N.F.L. says, ‘We are going to hire him, and he deserves a second chance,’ or they say, ‘We don’t know for sure what’s happened, because it happened behind closed doors,’ they reinforce the idea that it’s not a good idea to speak up.”Remember that while watching the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl, and also remember Brown’s past.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More