That's disingenuous though; the vast majority of people who want to spout "On average, blacks have lower IQs than whites" are not doing it for genuine reasons. They want to feel superior or they want to hand-wave away inequality.

This is true. However it is a statement that has to be addressed by anyone who wants to create actual change.

And hand-waving away the effects of inequality goes both ways. For a thought-provoking book, read http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended... which demonstrates that simply giving disadvantaged people direct access to the same educational opportunities that advantaged people could have actually does them a disservice.

If you test 5 yr old children and control for income, parental involvement, etc then there are no differences.

Can you please cite me a study that found that?

I've seen many that finds the differences reduced. But none that finds the differences eliminated. I understand your expectation that there must be some such study, but actually looking for one may be informative for you.

And if you fail, perhaps you should think harder about the topic. If we try to raise two children, black and white, and give them the same environment, can we? Inevitably both are exposed to the same media. Inevitably both are exposed to strangers and teachers who will judge on appearance and treat them differently. So we can't create equivalent environments!

Given that fact, it would be shocking if you could make the environments actually equivalent.

Your method of making the same statement is most often used as an explanation; the equivalent of "that's how we've always done it". Mine is a more full and correct revelation that it is economic and social factors wasting the potential of bright young black kids and is something that can be and should be corrected.

How do you know that your revelation is correct when actual critical discussion has been rejected out of hand? It is my belief that the current approach has failed, and failed badly. It is my personal belief that success is possible. But I direct you back to the book I suggested above to make the point that thinking naively about it guarantees that we continue pushing solutions that are bound to fail at great cost to everyone.

"First, we want marginalized people to feel welcome, not like they have to defend their presence."

I believe this is wrong. Catering to marginalized people do not make those people less marginalized. In fact, it can make situation worse: http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended...

I think that one should provide insistence on some important criteria evaluation instead of banning something outright.

This is from basic psychology - provide positive idea to focus on.

You are making the major assumption that getting into a school that you are not really qualified for is better than not getting into it.

This assumption has been studied. Evidence says that getting into a school you are not prepared for results in worse outcomes than getting into a worse school that you are prepared for. Read http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended... if you want to see some of that evidence.

The question that I have is whether getting underprepared by highly able students into a good school AND giving sufficient assistance would result in better outcomes still. But at present there is no question that universities are not doing this. And therefore affirmative action programs are generally hurting the very people that they are trying to help.