Comment by zahlman

> within the accepted social boundaries of the time

Pulls a lot of weight there.

> AA advocacy exposed cracks in systems

No; it proposed a supposed justice for those former social boundaries.

> and pushed reforms like anonymization and structured evaluation

No, these are clearly not anything to do with AA programs as actually observed today. It's extremely disingenuous to attribute the "colourblindness" of the 90s to "AA" and then use that to justify the explicitly race-conscious policies of today.

> You can disagree with that choice, but it is coherent to see it as pro merit rather than anti merit.

No, it is not. It completely ignores what the word "merit" means.