The US military addressed this exact problem by making extra resources available to black recruits who were interested in becoming officers to assist them in performing to the exact same standards that were required of whites. The result? They managed to achieve their diversity goals among officers. And the expectations that you should reasonably have of an officer do not depend on race.

I like the approach that the US military took to affirmative action. By contrast I object to the way that our educational establishment routinely makes much better resources available to help white students achieve in one set of schools, while shoving black students through grades regardless of achievement in a different set of schools. Which then lets us all cry about the horrible discrimination when employers fail to treat high school diplomas equally for white and black kids.

In the specific case that I'm thinking of, thanks to affirmative action she had academic honors until, but not including grad school. (She did get a masters though.)

I've encountered some black people in the work place who I suspect were continuing to coast on affirmative action and willingness to accuse others of discrimination. They are a clear minority of the blacks that I've worked with. Furthermore I've never seen any of that minority manage to get good referrals from anyone I'd be interested in working with.

That said, there are some dysfunctional organizations out there where managers can find it easier to promote their problem employees to be someone else's problem than they do to fire them. Someone whose success was entirely dependent on affirmative action might do well in such an organization. My last experience with such an organization was fairly brief and was about 15 years ago. (I reached the point where I had to decide between finding a better job or filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against the man I was reporting to. Yes, that happens to men as well. I chose finding a better job.)

Update: I should clarify that my opinions about the relative competency of people in that program came from knowing them for several years, and from being in classes together.

Well, there's Elizabeth Warren...