There is some interesting research on the effectiveness of race-blind vs quotas: Parag Pathak has written about this specifically (some are on NBER). Joshua An

There is some interesting research on the effectiveness of race-blind vs quotas: Parag Pathak has written about this specifically (some are on NBER). Joshua Angrist also has a few good papers on education. From what I have read, race-blind is less effective than quotas in terms of achieving stated aims of policy...but I am not sure what this actually means given that: the exact goals of policies are often not clear, it isn't clear why race-blind doesn't work as well (given that it is often focused on socioeconomic disadvantage), etc. Definitely an interesting topic though as it is so amenable to research. My common-sense instinct, as a non-American with nothing at stake, is that this is playing with fire.