Why are progressives so scared to get rid of affirmative action?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

53% : We've been told for decades that affirmative action is simply an effort to make colleges more proportionally representative of the nation's demographics writ large: "The diversity justification allows admissions departments to put a thumb on the scale to increase the representation of some minority students whose academic credentials would otherwise be insufficient.
51% : Of course, if Spiers and her counterparts believe that the underrepresentation of whites is simply the result of merit, they would ostensibly be fine with ending affirmative action -- after all, the stated purpose of affirmative action was "to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body," as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the majority opinion for the Supreme Court's 2003 ruling on the matter, Grutter v. ­Bollinger.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.