The issue with this comment and opponents of standardized testing more generally is that they compare standardized tests against some purely theoretical ideal m

The issue with this comment and opponents of standardized testing more generally is that they compare standardized tests against some purely theoretical ideal metric that perfectly captures "merit," however it's defined. The reality is that standardized testing doesn't need to be absolutely perfectly fair to be something worth keeping; it just needs to be fairer than selecting students who had the opportunity to be captain of the lacrosse team. That is a far lower bar that it easily exceeds. This is the point where standardized testing opponents will typically rhetorically concede that they also are opposed to that unfairness, but they never manage to get particularly incensed about athletic or legacy admissions.