Jackson, J., dissenting
them accordingly (including, for example, prescribing them appropriate amounts of pain medication).[1] For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.[2] Studies also confirm what common sense counsels: Closing wealth disparities through programs like UNC’s—which, beyond diversifying the medical profession, open doors to every sort of opportunity—helps address the aforementioned health disparities (in the long run) as well.[3]
Do not miss the point that ensuring a diverse student body in higher education helps everyone, not just those who, due to their race, have directly inherited distinct disadvantages with respect to their health, wealth, and wellbeing. Amici explain that students of every race will come to have a greater appreciation and understanding of civic virtue, democratic values, and our country’s commitment to equality.[4] The larger economy benefits, too: When it comes down to the brass tacks of dollars and cents, ensuring diversity will, if permitted to work, help save hundreds of billions of dollars annually (by conservative estimates).[5]
Thus, we should be celebrating the fact that UNC, once a stronghold of Jim Crow, has now come to understand this.
- ↑ AMC Brief 4, 14; see also Brief for American Federation of Teachers as Amicus Curiae 10 (AFT Brief) (collecting further studies on the “tangible benefits” of patients’ access to doctors who look like them).
- ↑ AMC Brief 4.
- ↑ National Research Council, New Horizons in Health: An Integrative Approach 100–111 (2001); Pollack et al., Should Health Studies Measure Wealth? A Systematic Review, 33 Am. J. Preventative Med. 250, 252, 261–263 (2007); see also Part I–B, supra.
- ↑ See APA Brief 14–20, 23–27 (collecting studies); AFT Brief 11–12 (same); Brief for National School Boards Association et al. as Amici Curiae 6–11 (same); see also 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 592–593, 655–656 (factual findings in this case with respect to these benefits).
- ↑ LaVeist et al., The Economic Burden of Racial, Ethnic, and Educational Health Inequities in the U. S., 329 JAMA 1682, 1683–1684, 1689, 1691 (May 16, 2023).
