Never forget that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was stumped by the question, "What is a woman?" and explained that she wasn't a biologist. She's not a lot of things, but that hasn't stopped her from spreading her ignorance. The Wall Street Journal had a piece Wednesday on Jackson's dissent in the ruling banning universities from using affirmative action in admissions. Jackson explained that lives depended on it, and that, "for high-risk black newborns, having a black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live."
Ted Frank writes, "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%."
HuffPost senior national reporter Jonathan Cohn says that Jackson was correct in her broader point, even if she "got a statistic wrong."
Lots of right wing chortling over a statistic Ketanji Brown Jackson got wrong in her opinion
— Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) July 6, 2023
But when it comes to her broader point, about what research says on race and health care, she got it right — and Clarence Thomas didn’t https://t.co/DT8aT55vGm
So never mind that she was absolutely incorrect, to a startling degree. Her point was valid.
But what does it say that a) a team of well- educated attorneys putc this in a brief without a second thought, and b) none of the well- educated attorneys on SCOTUS raised an eyebrow over it?
— Jonathan H. Adler (@jadler1969) July 6, 2023
"Inaccurate but kinda true" isn't a defense.
It was one error in a long list of relevant facts. It happens.
— Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) July 6, 2023
Hopefully they’ll all learn (as other justices and clerks who have made errors in past have).
I still think it’s ok to keep in perspective.
YMMV!
It happens if the "statistics" confirm your priors. Then you don't even check.
She got her facts wrong, but it's okay.
— Dustin M. Turner, Ph.D (@dmturner1232) July 6, 2023
Affirmative action in one sentence.
The affirmative action mediocrity got her facts wrong but she still got it right is quite the convoluted take.
— Duke of Toxic Masculinity (@LeviathanLeap) July 6, 2023
Factually wrong but morally right is the most tired point that people make these days.
— Mic_Dre (@dremicdre) July 6, 2023
She claimed black newborns were twice as likely to live when delivered by black doctors than white.
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) July 6, 2023
The correct number is .2% and that because white doctors are more likely to be specialists in the field and dealing w/ more complicated births.
She’s a liar https://t.co/71hEksmi8x
Fake but accurate, huh?
— Sweet Willy Rollbar, owner of a cathedral mind (@vorozab) July 6, 2023
She didn't just get a statistic wrong. It's not as if she just put in a wrong number. She chose to believe an unbelievable statistic without any thought to its accuracy. And then put it in her legal argument. I find that pretty concerning from a justice.
— Lee C Eldridge (@LeeCEldridge) July 6, 2023
So you want us to take her seriously, but not literally.
— Check Mark Prime (@PrimeCheckMark) July 6, 2023
Why should I believe the rest of her citations if she botched this one? And why didn't she make her argument based on the law? Isn't that her responsibility?
— Topo Gigio (@TopoGigio1925) July 6, 2023
She didn’t even get it remotely close to right.
— The Great Intellectual (Corn/Pop) (@TheGreatIntell1) July 6, 2023
Jackson also falsely said "racial and ethnic minorities" live shorter lives than whites, when Hispanics & Asians live longer than whites on average. Sotomayor's dissent falsely claimed UNC once excluded ALL "people of color," when it admitted Hispanics, Native Americans & Asians.
— Hans_Bader (@HansFBader) July 6, 2023
Don't let those pesky inaccurate underlying facts get in the way of the overall argument that I like.
— Tame Vizsla (@TameVizsla) July 6, 2023
Nice try but she got it all wrong. Really weird to read a dissent that contains no legal or constitutional argument. Just debunked talking points from left-wing orgs with their own axes to grind.
— Markus Carson (@MarkusDude1000) July 6, 2023
She's sloppy with her data, she's sloppy with her facts, and you don't care because she–like you–is only interested in reaching her predetermined ruling.
— Orb (@InfiniteOrb) July 6, 2023
There's something about Jackson … people seem perfectly fine waving away things like "I'm not a biologist" and including utterly false statistics in a dissent. It's almost as if she got the gig for reasons other than her judicial expertise.
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