One of the sure signs of a bad policy is that it is impossible to defend it honestly in plain English.
Affirmative action is a classic example.
You can set it so high that only Einstein could qualify or so low that Forrest Gump would sail through with flying colors. Even if the term had some real meaning, the principle is ridiculous. What we do in real life is try to get the most bang for the buck. That is not a standard, that is the pretense of a standard, a phony. The other great pretense of affirmative action is that it is somehow making up for the past.