This has been the case for decades.
Meritocracy has become synonymous with “racism.”
And not just in higher education, also, the key to 12 setting where everyone gets a trophy and we move onto the next grade, even if you’re not proficient in basic things like reading in basic math
When George W. Bush ran for President the first time, someone leaked his college transcripts at Yale to The New Yorker for a hit piece, so that everyone could make fun of his mediocre grades (B's and C's). But he had been there in the 1960s before grade inflation.
Gore and Kerry had similar grade point averages to Bush's but somehow the media never talked about that.