Trying to Justify Racial Quotas

WSJ reports:

In a dissent from last week's ruling against racial preferences in college admissions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson enumerated purported benefits of "diversity" in education. "It saves lives," she asserts. "For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live."…

The study makes no such claims.

This is a pretty crazy assertion. I don't know how "high-risk" is defined, but newborns usually survive. Nothing will double the survival rate.

Here is the error source:

The Association of American Medical Colleges (“AAMC”) is a non-profit educational association whose members include all 156 accredited U.S. medical schools; more than 400 teaching hospitals and health systems; and more than 70 academic societies.

On page 4 of the amicus brief:

And for high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician is tantamount to a miracle drug: it more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live. (fn)Brad N. Greenwood et al., Physician-Patient Racial Concordance and

Pres. Biden appointed Jackson because she is a Black woman, and she is arguing for admitting students just because they are Black.

The actual study found a slight effect. Correlation is not causation. Maybe it is chance. Maybe the most difficult cases are passed to the most competent White obstetricians, so the most competent ones have worse fatality rates.

Apparently the medical schools are owned by the Left, or not competent to spot a phony statistical argument.

The College Fix reports:

Guests at the recent Berkshire Conference of Women Historians are expressing fury after one of the event’s venerable cofounders — an elderly white scholar — said she wished she had dark skin so her professional life had been easier, according to numerous tweets from professors in the audience. “Well, the Berks plenary just took a turn. A white senior scholar at the 50th anniversary plenary VERY publicly, and unapologetically, said that she wished she was Black so her professional life would be easier,” tweeted attendee Stephanie Narrow, a history PhD candidate at UC Irvine. “She was immediately called out for her blatantly racist remarks, and refused to apologize, let alone listen, to the reason why her remarks were horrifying[ly] wrong. ‘You won’t change my mind, I’m 84 years old,'” Narrow continued in her June 30 tweet thread. “The room is shaken, it’s palpable.”

They argued that her remark was "wrong" in the sense of being racist, inappropriate, upsetting, and uncomfortable, but not factually wrong. No could point to any difficulties faced by Black professors. The comment caused a fuss, and this pathetic apology:

The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians apologizes sincerely for the harm experienced at the 2023 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities. The very public racism witnessed ... The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians leadership condemns the racist, homophobic, and Islamophobic comments of one of the Big Berks conference co-founders, Lois Banner. We acknowledge harm and apologize to scholars of color ...

Banner’s comments and other micro-aggressions at the conference were particularly harmful as the Supreme Court of the United States announced its ruling to dismantle affirmative action in higher education that very day.

They are unable to give any example of harm. Obviously Banner is correct, or this apology would find something more substantial than a trivial micro-aggression.

Here is a YouTube debate on Is It Impossible For Feminism To Be Truly Inclusive? | Women & Non-Binary Debate | Cambridge Union. Listening is a waste of time. These women make little sense. No, feminism will never be truly inclusive. You cannot be promoting women's rights, equality, and the rights of non-women at the same time.

Update: The law firm has admitted the error:

That claim came from an amicus brief filed by lawyers representing an association of medical colleges. The brief stated that for "high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician is tantamount to a miracle drug; it more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live," citing as support a 2020 study that examined mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015.

In a letter Friday filed to the Supreme Court docket, Norton Rose Fulbright wrote that the argument cited by Jackson in her opinion "warrants clarification" and sought to clear up any "confusion."

"The principal cited finding of the [study] was that the mortality rate for Black newborns, as compared to White newborns, decreased by more than half when under the supervision of Black physician," the law firm's letter said. "In absolute terms, this study found that patient-physician racial concordance led to a reduction in health inequity."

All the arguments for systemic racism and inequity are based on bogus statistics and anecdotes like this.