The articles in sep deal with the origins of these in depth
Naturally, lots of non-native people considered that racist.
Except it was done to try to correct a very real problem - that the native people have disproportionately worse outcomes in our health system. And likewise, due to about 150 years of deliberate policy that marginalised the native people, they were disproportionately less likely to enter medical school.
And there's now, after some years of this policy, an emerging body of evidence that this "racist" policy around medical school spots is making a difference around health system outcomes for native people.
So yes, the policy is, on the surface racist, but it's slowly combating a systemic racism that was baked into all of our government institutions by previous racist policies. (E.g., native people experience a higher conviction rate and harsher sentencing for the same crimes as white people)
There's still a long way to go for us, but yeah, it gets damn complicated when you're trying to undo the damage of previous racism by introducing positive discrimination.
"Anti-racism", which in American academia usually comes about in the form of blacks and latinos receiving preferential treatment at the cost of whites and asians, is indeed racism.
Racism is not acceptable, no matter how benevolent the intent or goal.
And while we're here, since it's part of the bigger, main discussion anyway:
"Equity" is the anti-thesis of equality, because "equity" mandates that all individuals arrive (and stay!) at the same place in life no matter who they are. It throws out individual ambitions and efforts towards obtaining a better silver plate in lieu of society handing everyone the same steel plate.