Race and gender should not play any part.
That would thin down the herd of loud empty tin cans making a bunch of noise.
I agree with your premise, but clearly you haven’t taken an SAT or an LSAT in a long time. Both tests are written by the progressive left to filter out conservative intellectual thought, as is modern liberal arts and law school education.
A conservative student must succeed in spite of these barriers. Nonetheless, even with the tests tilted in their favor, the affirmative action beneficiaries manage to score poorly.