Low-income junior high-schools of course needs more money from the government than the high-income schools to combat equality issues. Because let's face it, it's the low-income people that struggle and always will, money IS power.
College admissions were based that way. And it disproportionately benefited white students, and affirmative action policies were implemented to combat that.
Think of Affirmative Action similar to weighted GPA's.
College Admissions attempted to take a population and normalize them to a pair of datapoints (GPA/SAT/ACT). Affirmative action policies attempted to weigh lower scores higher, factoring in historical biases.
A (white) friend explained it like this: Think of playing a game of monopoly and if you're white you start with 2x the money, and given 1/4 of the properties on the board. If you're black, you start with 1/2 the money, and the all prices are doubled. How likely is it for a black person to win?
Telling people that if only they had a different skincolor that maybe they would have made it. Making the focus on something you cant change is just poison.
If you fix the economic divide violence goes down, substance abuse go down, happiness goes up, and the major beneficiaries are minorities and the ones that will be hit the hardest are the majority group, no racism necessary.
The problem is that other people, way way way earlier in the educational pipeline, are already making these judgements, but the opposite of Harvard.
"Oh no, Andre, I'm not sure that you would actually want to take this honors science course that much, how about I just put you on on-level?"
This happens all the time, not to mention intergenerational effects.