Is it enough to jolt racists out of their intellectual rut?

From Why the Champions of Affirmative Action Had to Leave Asian Americans Behind by Jay Caspian Kang.  The subheading is The original concept in pursuit of diversity was vital and righteous. The way it was practiced was hard to defend.

For a Classical Liberal, the overturning of Affirmative Action is to be celebrated almost solely because we both believe that it is immoral to discriminate based on race and because we read, correctly, the Constitution as preventing the discrimination based on race.

No matter how worthy the intentions might have been in passing Affirmative Action in the first place, that was always based on the weak philosophical grounds that evil means can be justified by noble ends.  

Kang almost is writing as if the major flaw was that Affirmative Action was wrong because it did not distribute the bounty equally among non-white races.  While true that it was not equally distributed, that would not be my argument at all.  Discriminating based on race is simply wrong and we are well done with it.  (Yes, yes, there will be rear guard actions by those institutions so wedded to racial discrimination but ideally, without legal cover, it will fade away sooner than later.)

Kang is better at pointing out some of the inherent follies of Affirmative Action.  He mentions one that came to my attention two or three decades ago and which I think is profound.  Because the best universities could not find native-born American blacks with the academic wherewithal to perform well at their institutions, they switched goals.  The original intent, and one towards which it was easy to be sympathetic, was for Affirmative Action to function in part as a restitution to those descended from slaves.  

Not being able to make their racial quotas, most top universities began admitting more and more black students who were emigrants or the children of emigrants of the African diaspora.  As many as 40-50% of the elite university black student population were not American born blacks.  Those who were intended to be the beneficiaries of an ill-guided policy were being left out of it to the benefit of emigrants.

Worse, from my perspective, is that that highlighted an even greater sin.  If you want real diversity, diversify based on class.  The behavioral and value gulf between upper-income family blacks and whites in minuscule compared to the gulf between both of those groups and lower income Americans.  Filling their race quotas with immigrants illuminated that elite universities are not interested in real diversity but are interested in maintaining and serving a clerisy elite.

Many more fights are left before those committed to racial discrimination are finally defeated but the overturning of Affirmative Action is a good first step.  Hopefully it might be enough of a jolt to get the racists to shift their perspective from a flawed policy to something more beneficial, such as helping all Americans of every race, every religion and every class, to acquire the education that will allow them to maximize their life opportunities.  Be that elite universities, state universities, community colleges, or high school.  Each and all of these institutions should be a launch pad for all citizens and be delivered effectively, cheaply and expeditiously.  To all based on their abilities.