[clusterfish]

Your own argument is a false equivalency just as much. There are many non-merit based factors you could be looking at that aren't race, that would lift up all poor people, or all people with parents who who have no degrees, etc., And such approaches would help disadvantaged races/people disproportionately more than privileged races/people without ever looking at the applicant's race. That would be fair, and automatically balanced as races become more or less disadvantaged over time. Explicitly using race in decisions is just plain racism.