Justice Ketanji Can't Do Maff

 

Diversity Hire Ketanji

[Doug here: Yep, as dumb as expected. Joe Biden’s insistence on having (ONLY) a black woman on the SCOTUS was always a slap in the face to the US, it’s citizens, caucasian persons and the 1000’s of brilliant persons that would be more qualified than Ketanji. Anyone with a brain could see that she was “subpar” at the confirmation hearings, but very few congressmen wanted to be labeled “RACIST!”]

From Jonathan Turley’s website:

The dissent of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in the North Carolina affirmative action case was factually wrong as noted by Jonathan Turley and plenty of SCOTUS document reviewers:

In a Wall Street Journal column, lawyer Ted Frank objects to what he argues is a “mathematically absurd claim” about black newborns in Jackson’s dissent. Jackson was arguing that affirmative action has been shown to “save lives” by allowing black doctors to give better care for black people than white doctors. [Doug here: WRONG!]

“It saves lives. For marginalized communities in North Carolina, it is critically important that UNC and other area institutions produce highly educated professionals of color. Research shows that Black physicians are more likely to accurately assess Black patients’ pain tolerance and treat them accordingly (including, for example, prescribing them appropriate amounts of pain medication). For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.”

Frank objected:

“A moment’s thought should be enough to realize that this claim is wildly implausible. Imagine if 40% of black newborns died—thousands of dead infants every week. But even so, that’s a 60% survival rate, which is mathematically impossible to double. And the actual survival rate is over 99%.”

The claim is based on a 2020 study cited in a footnote, which Justice Jackson appears to have taken from an amicus brief by the Association of American Medical Colleges.  However, Frank again objects that the study is not only “flawed” but does not make that claim:

“The study makes no such claims. It examines mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015 and shows a 0.13% to 0.2% improvement in survival rates for black newborns with black pediatricians (though no statistically significant improvement for black obstetricians).”

Frank says that “the AAMC brief either misunderstood the paper or invented the statistic.” He also notes that the study is flawed by relying on a linear regression given the small differential of 10 newborns a year. Instead, he claims that study did the accepted logistic model analysis in such cases but put the results in an appendix:

“There, the most highly specified model still shows an improvement in black newborn survival. But if you know how to read the numbers—the authors don’t say it—it also shows black doctors with a statistically significant higher mortality rate for white newborns, and a higher mortality rate overall, all else being equal.”