If you aren't willing to put in the effort for a multiple choice (easy) exam, you are failing any STEM college degree (the only ones that give you a chance at making it out of the poorhouse), straight up. Compared to the SAT intro calculus at any top university is magnitudes harder.
If you admit the kids you're talking about under affirmative action they'd just be weeded out in intro courses and get relegated to some social sciences degree with negative return on tuition. That is objectively worse than rejecting them.
I guess we aren't talking about the same humanities majors. Most of my friends from Berkeley who are history or humanities majors are lawyers, academics, or doctors (yes, many of the humanities became doctors). They don't really seem to care about the money even though we as engineers seem they should care. Or they had to go through additional layer of study which depresses their true value.
If you admit the kids you're talking about under affirmative action they'd just be weeded out in intro courses and get relegated to some social sciences degree with negative return on tuition. That is objectively worse than rejecting them.