Dissapointing That Not Even Supreme Court Justices Think about What They Write

Justice Jackson demonstrates a clear inability to think as do many of us every day.   Furthermore, she is undoubtedly not the first justice to lambast the majority decision based on some illogical, erroneous arguments.  It is, however, somewhat distressing that clearly illogical and impossible arguments make in to Supreme Court decisions and objections.  

In her dissent on the UNC/Harvard admission case, Justice Jackson claimed that racial preferences were essential in admission to medical schools because more black doctors were needed to improve health outcomes for black patients.

Specifically, she wrote, “For high-risk black newborns, having a black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.” That claim was taken from an amicus brief filed by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which in turn was referencing a study that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

First, the study does not claim to find a doubling in survival rates for black newborns who have a black attending doctor. Instead, in its most fully specified model, it reports that 99.6839% of black babies born with a black attending physician survived compared with 99.5549% of black babies born with white attending physicians, a difference of 0.129%.  (The paper estimates a number of models.  My interpretation of one of the most fully specified linear probability models was that a black mother having a black physician reduced the probability of death by .005.) 

The only way that having a black doctor could double the survival rate is if the survival rate for black babies with white doctors was less than 50% which is not the case even for premature births.

In evaluating the finding that black babies are slightly more likely to survive with black than white doctors keep in mind too that NICU doctors are disproportionately white in comparison with all obstetricians.  Thus white doctors are treating the babies with lower chances of survival ceteris paribus and black doctors are more likely to be treating a patient not in need of the NICU.

It turns out that Jackson and her clerks simply do not bother to check sources.  In her dissent, Justice Jackson writes "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)."   

A footnote refers to an amicus brief from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) which in turn  refers to four studies in support of this claim. Yet none of the studies examines whether Black doctors are better at treating  the pain of Black patients. All four document Black patients’ problems with pain management, but crucially, not one examines the efficacy of doctors of different races.   The AAMC certainly bears a large portion of the responsibility for untrue statements appearing in Supreme Court documents but checking original sources is not out of the realm of reason for the Justice and her clerks particularly when they encounter statements that are obviously patently false.