Good morning! ☀️

And Happy Sunday!

The Supreme Court had an active week. What were its rulings? Among other important rulings over the past few weeks, this week, the Supreme Court:

1. Killed Biden’s $400 billion plan to cancel or reduce federal student loan debts

2. “Sided on Friday with a web designer in Colorado who said she had a First Amendment right to refuse to design wedding websites for same-sex couples despite a state law that forbids discrimination against gay people”

3. Rejected a controversial Republican-led legal theory that would have reshaped how elections are conducted

In addition, the Supreme Court struck down “race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities across the country.” In other words, it dealt a death blow to affirmative action (You can read the 237-page affirmative action opinion here).

Here are some of the justices’ quotes about the affirmative action ruling:

Chief Justice John Roberts: "Many universities have for too long...concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin," he wrote. "Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: "The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society."

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: "With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces 'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life."

Justice Clarence Thomas, arguing against the use of the policies, described them as “rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh: “To be clear, although progress has been made since [previous decisions by the court allowing race-conscious admissions], racial discrimination still occurs and the effects of past racial discrimination still persist. Federal and state civil rights laws serve to deter and provide remedies for current acts of racial discrimination. And governments and universities still ‘can, of course, act to undo the effects of past discrimination in many permissible ways that do not involve classification by race.’”

Question: When was the term “affirmative action” first used?

News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration & Psychedelics

A bit of context: Psychedelics are drugs that include psilocybin (a substance found in certain types of mushrooms) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). These drugs act as psychoactive substances that create changes in perception and mood, and induce psychedelic experiences, such as the ones conveyed by the following emojis:

✨(☯‿☯)(❂‿❂)(⬤‿⬤) | 🍄💊🧠🌌

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released it’s first ever draft guidance that provides considerations to “sponsors developing psychedelic drugs for treatment of medical conditions (e.g., psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders)”. The draft guidances basically represent the Agency’s current thinking around a particular subject. This is big news as shows a greater openness by the government around psychedelic research for medical purposes.

The FDA writes: “Psychedelic drugs show initial promise as potential treatments for mood, anxiety and substance use disorders. However, these are still investigational products…By publishing this draft guidance, the FDA hopes to outline the challenges inherent in designing psychedelic drug development programs and provide information on how to address these challenges. The goal is to help researchers design studies that will yield interpretable results that will be capable of supporting future drug applications.”

Some interesting context about it is that an analysis in JAMA Psychiatry, a research journal, estimated that most states will legalize psychedelics over the next 15 years and that “at least 25 states have considered legislation” in the space. Currently, Oregon and Colorado are the only states that have decriminalized the supervised use of psychedelics.

You can read the draft guidance here, or an overview of the guidance here.

Other social work-related news

• The White House met with representatives from 10 drug firm companies to address the cost of overdose-reversal drugs such as Narcan. Emergent BioSolutions, the company behind naloxone, has been criticized for plans at pricing the drug at $50 for a two-dose kit. The goal is to ensure that the cost of these life-saving drugs does not reach a point where they become inaccessible

• A new guaranteed income program in Washington DC is providing no-strings-attached monthly cash assistance to Black mothers with children involved in the child welfare system. The mothers are eligible to receive $500 for up to three years

• The Pittsburgh synagogue gunman who shot worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the United States, is undergoing trial. His defense attorneys state that he “acted irrationally due to mental health problems” while prosecutors mention that he had undergone '“extensive planning”. These arguments will ultimately decide whether he is sentenced to life in prison or death

• On the international stage: Some claim that “Australia’s mental health system transforms people into ‘things’” by forcing treatment and seclusion'. In Hong Kong, mental health is “in the spotlight” after a series of violent attacks. Some reasons for the increase in mental illness in Hong Kong are attributed to COVID-19, chaos due to anti-government protests, high cost of living, and what are called coffin cubicles (see pictures of the cubicles here)

• The American Hospital Association (AHA) is lobbying Congress to address several systemic behavioral health issues

Reads on research

• Childhood housing insecurity was associated with short- and long-term mental health outcomes after adjustment for childhood poverty, suggesting that efforts to increase housing security through social policies and other methods may be protective for mental health

• Some experts think that Botox may be effective for mental health; Others are not so sure. A 2021 review of the research supported the claim that Botox may be an effective treatment for depression

Reads on policy

• “A federal judge in Little Rock struck down Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming healthcare treatments for minors as unconstitutional on Tuesday, saying the law violates the Constitutional rights of transgender youth, their parents, and their medical providers”

Tech, social work, and other resources 😎

• Lyssn, a platform that uses artifical intelligence to analyze and review recordings of behavioral health encounters in an effort to “improve fidelity to evidence-based practices,” and Protocol Services, the nation’s leading crises hotline, were awarded a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to “adapt the tech for use in crisis calls” (article here)

• Do you know of a leader who is shaping the future of palliative and end-of-life care? If so, you can nominate them for the Circle of Life Award

• How the field of social work is adapting to modern technologies like virtual reality and A.I.

• Prescription Digital Therapeutics For Mental Health: What It Means For Doctors And Their Patients

• Behavioral Health Tech Conference, the largest conference focused on expanding access to mental health and substance use services through technology and innovation, announced the launch of its inaugural awards program, the Young Innovators in Behavioral Health Awards

• Author Health, a health care platform for Medicare Advantage recipients, launched with $115 million in financing

Answer: Affirmative action was first used in the United States by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961. The term was used in the president’s Executive Order, which stipulated that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated [fairly] during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”

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