You are ignoring any racism that occurred prior to measuring these students.
I am from the south, black children are taught that they way they speak is inferior and they need to learn “proper” English. That has nothing to do with how much sunscreen they need and everything to do with how other individuals and society treats them.
You are conflating race, culture and class. They are multiple variables that affect what opportunities people have. While I would be the the first to agree with you that race isn’t the basis for any difference between people it is how the world defines the social class and culture of a specific demographic that ends up determining many of the cascading differences between “races”.
I would also agree that DEI should not distinguish people solely along racial lines. But I don’t believe it does. And to the extent it does I would argue against that approach.
But you seem to be collapsing arguments based on ranges to binaries. It is possible that race alone doesn’t determine one’s class, wealth, or access to opportunity while also being the most predictable factor in a multi variate causal relationship.
I am curious if you would acknowledge that meaningful parts of American society have divided people along racial lines specifically to preserve wealth, class and geographical segregation. I would be the first to acknowledge meaningful progress to compensate for that reality and the only question is what work remains to reach the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
If your argument is that we should boost people based on individual analysis of multiple factors that increase or decrease their social mobility, access to opportunity and ability to reach their full potential in participating in the social contract then we are in agreement. If you go further and say race should never be considered because it has no relation to depriving individuals of opportunity then I would continue to argue that you aren’t correctly evaluating the facts of the past or present.