In an earlier era, when there were seldom enough blacks on most elite white college campuses to form a "critical mass," did those students not do as well as in the post-affirmative action era, when blacks became more numerous on such campuses?
It is significant that no such evidence has been sought by those promoting the critical mass theory. However, students who graduated from an academically outstanding black high school in Washington between 1892 and 1954 left an impressive academic record at Amherst College during that era, even though there were seldom more than a handful of black students on that campus at that time.
About three-quarters of these black students graduated from Amherst and more than one-fifth of these graduates were Phi Beta Kappas. This was long before the era of grade inflation or affirmative action.
None of this is definitive proof. But those with the critical mass theory offer no evidence at all and none is asked. Their views prevail by default -- and dogmatism.
The time is long overdue to judge beliefs and the policies based on them by what actually works, not by what sounds good or what makes people feel good.
Having opposed the racial inferiority thesis in various writings over the years, I have in my own teaching held black students to the same standards as white students, though not all black students appreciated this kind of equality. Many of those who promote double standards for blacks seem convinced that blacks cannot achieve what whites have achieved. That is part of the ugly secret behind affirmative action.