Yet many of the groups which benefit from affirmative action are not the historical victims of racism. The problem is that affirmative action is not used to fight discrimination. If it were, some effort would be made to separate out those who have been victimized by discrimination from those who have not. Instead the purpose is to create diversity. This is an entirely different goal, one which has little to do with the principle of equal opportunity.
Diversity means different things to different people.
If you disagree, you have a different concept of diversity. If the definition of diversity is an open question, so are its rationales. But ambiguity and complexity do not lend themselves to moralistic crusades. Instead we are told to focus on race when race is not the issue. Consider President Yates' example of the disadvantage created by color, the short life span of black men.