Cut it to the chase. The ruling class of tomorrow is the current class of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. (And maybe Wharton). The end. The current class wants a ruling class that looks like their idea of utopia. This means a very Kosher group of whites, a hefty dose of divide-and-conquer "diversity", and a minimum of technocrats. Obviously, Asians are left out of that utopia.
They aren't going to spell that out in words, but their actions are clear as damnation.
That said, race-blind admissions policies are not current law nor necessarily even the optimal policy. For example, we can't have a nation with a persistent racial underclass. In as much as college effects class mobility (which is probably small), race-aware policies allow for this.
Why not? As long as the racial underclass remains an underclass due solely to non-discriminatory processes, what's the problem?
A related question: suppose we don't divide humans into subgroups by race, but instead divide them by some other factor. (E.g., height, good looks, intellect, whatever.) Would it be wrong if one of those subdivisions were a "persistent underclass" due solely to a meritocratic process?
Are you asserting that we don't?
There’s nothing wrong with Caltech’s admission criteria (engineers and scientists are lovely people! I am one!), but it’s pretty stupid to boil down human ambition and accomplishment to the results of the SAT test.