Least of all the "favored" individual. My true but sad story. I worked for many years for one of the biggest chemical companies in the US, at one of their deep South sites. The company (affirmative action) hired a significant number of black technical employees. My group landed (and I worked directly with) probably 5-6.
One poor soul had gone up through "black" institutions his entire academic career (black high school, black universities) to the stated level of having a masters degree in chemistry. He worked directly for me. The poor soul just did NOT have either the necessary skills nor the necessary intelligence to function in the job. He barely performed at the level of a high school grad. Needless to say, he eventually departed the company, convinced the whole time that it was "the system" that was the reason.
The really sad part is that he was right...but not in the way he thought.
By comparison, some of those I worked with had come up through "all-black" but CATHOLIC parochial schools. Same demographic population, same cultural background, but NO "affirmative action" grade/performance inflation.
THOSE blacks could compete on an equal level with any other employee of the company of comparable academic background.
Affirmative action is NOT a positive!
I'd argue that your problem employees would have flunked out of those schools. Effort is a wonderful thing, but there's no substitute for native intelligence when it comes to technical fields.