It's hard to be opposed to merit-only requirements. It's not clear to me why we have to distort anything if we truly want to live in a world that is blind to color, gender, age, etc.
can you imagine if MLK's famous speech was this instead:
"I want my children to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Unless applying for college. Or grants. Or aid from the government. Or (...)"
Then say that. When you make your arguments, don't say "let's get rid of affirmative action". Say "let's make the admission process merit-based only".
Of course, you realise what you're saying then? You're saying you want 30% of all students in all elite colleges to likely come from new york. That's going to create a very monotonous, one-track kind of thought coming out of those places. Those schools that are currently the best in the world, will start producing similar thinking people with little exposure to diversity of thought or diversity of individuals.
Is that what you want? You are willing to fundamentally change the characters of these schools to meet some criteria of 'fair' that basically only uses a single attribute to judge people?
can you imagine if MLK's famous speech was this instead:
"I want my children to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Unless applying for college. Or grants. Or aid from the government. Or (...)"