So again without taking sides, those in favor of affirmative action would point out that life in America does not offer a level play field and that there are clear systemic discrimination based on race and some aspects of ethnicity.
African Americans have a life expectancy that is more than 10 years less than Asian Americans
If one accepts that one race is not inherently better or worse than others then one must accept that other systemic factors are in play that clearly favor Asian Americans over African Americans.
Affirmative action seeks to re-level the play field and measure the potential for success for two given representatives of their respective groups.
In this context it would be interesting to see how the current practices in affirmative actions would change under different metrics. For example, what if affirmative action was mostly calculated in terms of a combination of local Gini coefficient and yearly income. Would it in practice cause the same "re-leveling" of the playing field?
In the same line of thought there was a nice blog post on the (temporarily deceased Slate Star Codex) about how country of origin of ancestors in white Americans of European descent have strong statistical effects on income/class today. the same for African immigrants.
From this perspective the question becomes "can we improve the effect of affirmative action on fighting racial social segregation by using non-race based metrics?"
African Americans have a life expectancy that is more than 10 years less than Asian Americans
https://www.thebalance.com/the-racial-life-expectancy-gap-in...
African Americans have a median income that is less than half that of Asian Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
African Americans are incarcerated at more than 20 times the rate of Asian Americans.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html
If one accepts that one race is not inherently better or worse than others then one must accept that other systemic factors are in play that clearly favor Asian Americans over African Americans.
Affirmative action seeks to re-level the play field and measure the potential for success for two given representatives of their respective groups.