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14  STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT 

AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE 
JACKSON, J., dissenting 

lead to at least 50,000 excess deaths a year for Black Amer-
icans vis-à-vis White Americans.67  That is 80 million excess 
years of life lost from just 1999 through 2020.68 

Amici tell us that “race-linked health inequities pervad[e]
nearly every index of human health” resulting “in an overall 
reduced life expectancy for racial and ethnic minorities that
cannot  be  explained  by  genetics.”69   Meanwhile—tying
health and wealth together—while she lays dying, the typ-
ical Black American “pay[s] more for medical care and in-
cur[s] more medical debt.”70 

C 
We return to John and James now, with history in hand.
It is hardly John’s fault that he is the seventh generation to
graduate from UNC.  UNC should permit him to honor that 
legacy.  Neither, however, was it James’s (or his family’s) 
fault that he would be the first.  And UNC ought to be able 
to consider why.

Most  likely,  seven  generations  ago,  when  John’s  family
was  building  its  knowledge  base  and  wealth  potential  on 
the university’s campus, James’s family was enslaved and 
laboring in North Carolina’s fields.  Six generations ago, the 
North Carolina “Redeemers” aimed to nullify the results of 
the  Civil  War  through  terror  and  violence,  marauding  in
hopes of excluding all who looked like James from equal cit-
izenship.71  Five generations ago, the North Carolina Red
Shirts finished the job.72  Four (and three) generations ago,
Jim Crow was so entrenched in the State of North Carolina 

—————— 

67 Caraballo 1667. 
68 Ibid. 
69 AMC Brief 9. 
70 Bollinger & Stone 100. 
71 See Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States, S. Rep. 

No. 1, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., I–XXXII (1871). 

72 See D. Tokaji, Realizing the Right To Vote: The Story of Thornburg 
v. Gingles, in Election Law Stories 133–139 (J. Douglas & E. Mazo eds.
2016); see Foner xxii.