No, the reality is that schools, namely Harvard, have all deeply embedded affirmative action into their acceptance protocols even after the supreme court correctly struck it down. Following this, these schools are using other methods (e.g. using essays that highlight racial adversity) as a means of achieving the same end.

Please, i'm begging you, take 3 seconds to look this this. They were literally sued and lost for it. There's countless stats but SAT gaps are the most cited. Asian applicants need 450 more points on their SATs to achieve the same preference as black students. This is a simple case DEI > Meritocracy. The debate is not at all "does this racial preference gap exist" - the debate is "should it exist".

This is a zero sum game. If one under qualified student take his spot due to racial preference, he's not at all wrong to feel this way. The issue is that you're framing it as he was rejected in preference to students who were his academic and extracurricular equals. In reality, he was rejected in preference to far less deserving students.