Universities had to admit blacks and women and so forth. Into the corporate world, where anybody goes with a college education. My guess is that blacks would be farther ahead today if it had not been for the patronization of affirmative action. In my department at San Jose State, they've not hired one single black since the advent of affirmative action. No other ones have come along.
Merit is like any other ideal.
It's far from perfect. But if we denounce merit, we denounce quality, we denounce the idea of excellence. Because they know they're going to get into Harvard anyway. Instead, the white kid knows he'd better get his ass to that SAT coach and study day and night to get a high score. So if his score's not over 1400 he's out the door.