Merit based programs also help blacks

 Fox News:

Merit was never a dirty word for Blacks. Competing on merit empowered us to destroy racist stereotypes about our capabilities, shatter color barriers, and pioneer inventions that improved all Americans' quality of life.

For example, do you know someone whose cataracts were removed by laser eye surgery? Thank Dr. Patricia Bath. This ophthalmologist pioneered laser eye surgery and advocated for preventive blindness, earning her the "ultimate reward" of restoring sight to the blind.

Bath enjoyed many firsts, including being the first woman to chair an ophthalmology residency program in the United States. In 1986, she discovered a new device and less painful method to remove cataracts. Despite a colleague’s sexist denials of her breakthrough, Bath became the first Black female doctor to receive a medical patent for her treatment.

A merit-based program set Bath on a career path. In high school, she won a competitive research opportunity from the National Science Foundation at Yeshiva University. Bath called it "life changing" for a White Jewish school teacher to mentor her, a Black teen from Harlem.

SCHOOLS' WAR ON MERIT IS A REAL THREAT TO OUR KIDS' FUTURES

Bath’s story offers more than a Black History Month lesson. It illustrates a solution to boost the participation of Blacks, racial minorities, and disadvantaged kids in underrepresented disciplines such as the sciences.

Today, 5% of doctors identify as Black, and 6% of ophthalmologists are from minority groups. Perhaps we could inspire more youth to follow in this path by providing more enrichment programs and rigorous courses of study to gifted young people of different backgrounds. We must challenge their intellectual curiosity, not dull it.

Today, as part of a war on merit in K-12 education, honors classes are eliminated, accelerated math is abandoned, admissions to selective high schools are relaxed, and high-school entrance exams are scrapped in the name of equity. Critics claim such programs contribute to racial segregation, although data suggest otherwise. According to Education Trust analysis, Black and Latino students are "shut out" of advanced placement STEM courses despite an interest in those subjects because of systemic racism.

Opponents of honors classes believe they have a moral imperative to achieve equitable outcomes. Yet they ignore the Black and Hispanic students who stand to suffer from the elimination of gifted educational programming.

Merit-based programs operate as burners lighting a fire under a gifted young person. Kids, especially those from low-income households and struggling minority homes, are pushed to the limits of their abilities in these programs, rather than being held back. Some of them persevere against added obstacles of poverty, unstable homes, cultural assimilation and discrimination.
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All students should be encouraged to be the best that they can be regardless of race or ethnicity.  The so-called "equity" meme actually holds back gifted students of all backgrounds and hurts the US as a whole.