I suppose you can do a No True Scotsman and say that those weren’t truly enforcing equality of outcome since there were people at the top of that society doing the enforcing, but most would find that argument pretty strained.
Everyone should have the chance at getting educated, but not everyone needs to pass or excel - it is up to the individual to succeed, but it is up to society to provide the opportunity to succeed. That is why schooling (primary, secondary and tertiary) should be free for everyone.
You can't answer the question of "when" if a person has already decided the goal is unachievable. Again, those were his words not mine
The temporary measures will end WHEN people are genuinely interested enough to help regardless of whether they created the problem. That is my answer. You just don't like it. And that's ok....
If you/the people who support such a policy can't define an explicit goal then I'd say that's pretty unachievable.
Our system is based on equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. If there are issues with the opportunity then we should work to fix those (like is already being done in inner cities cleaning up the drugs/pushing out gangs/preventing fatherless homes/etc). But pretending that you're going to fix those socioeconomic issues by giving preferential treatment to people based on race is just pulling other problems into the mix and is blatantly racist.
No one is advocating wishing anything away. If you want to focus specifically on equality of opportunity you can't do so without recognizing that race directly affects which opportunities are available to whom. Any solution that ignores that is just more of the same. And doing more of the same only extends the timeline of "when" that the original comment took issue with.