The intent is to factor in some unknown "racism" value. Poor White and Asian kids still beat out poor Black and Hispanic kids academically on average, so if you naively stratified by income, you'd still wind up with a mostly white and Asian student population.
There are a lot of reasons Black and Hispanic kids underperform, and it's just easier for the school to short circuit all that and choose based on race rather than incorporate all those other factors. It might not even be viable to incorporate all those other factors.
We really only have two choices:
1) Wait out the effects of racism, historic and contemporary, which will take hundreds of years.
2) Sacrifice some of our "individual determination above all else" principles to reach some palpable level of racial equality.
I think both are flawed in their own ways, but the world is always imperfect, so pick your side.
There are a lot of reasons Black and Hispanic kids underperform, and it's just easier for the school to short circuit all that and choose based on race rather than incorporate all those other factors. It might not even be viable to incorporate all those other factors.
We really only have two choices:
1) Wait out the effects of racism, historic and contemporary, which will take hundreds of years.
2) Sacrifice some of our "individual determination above all else" principles to reach some palpable level of racial equality.
I think both are flawed in their own ways, but the world is always imperfect, so pick your side.