> Among those who had ever heard the term, 36% said affirmative action is a good thing, 29% said it is a bad thing and a third weren’t sure.
It was a preceding Gallup poll that found the result you're thinking of:
> By comparison, Gallup has asked U.S. adults whether they “generally favor or oppose affirmative action programs for racial minorities.” In 2021, the last time Gallup asked this question, a 62% majority of Americans favored such programs.
The disconnect between this sort of response with the one you cited at the end of your comment just serves to underline my point about the public's lack of clear understanding of what "affirmative action" means (and they cannot be entirely blamed for this, since in the culture, it has come to mean different things).
Institutions like Harvard will (for the foreseeable future) always have vastly more fully qualified applications than they can accept. The concept of affirmative action was originally intended by its proponents to be used only when tie-breaking between equally qualified candidates. Harvard and the other Ivies have this situation in extremis. The idea was that when faced with the question "well, we have 26 people all fully qualified, how are to pick between them?" that using race was a legitimate choice as long as the racial demographics of the institution did not match those of the overall population. They have (for a while) used gender in a similar way, and arguably could use favorite ice cream flavor if they chose, because the candidates are all qualified to be selected.
There was never a suggestion that "affirmative action" meant selecting less qualified candidates because of their racial status. However, the conservative right has claimed that this is what affirmative action really means in the world, and this idea has been broadly picked up by the media and public at large. Whether there is actually any evidence that this has happened on a significant scale is not something I've seen adequately addressed. From what I have read, including the Harvard case, I'd say it was much more an unfounded grievance on the part of people who felt they had a right to be admitted or hired than what actually happens. I could be wrong.
And people see that this framing of “breaking ties between qualified candidates” concept is merely wordplay. Harvard doesn’t say “everyone above a particular academic index score is ‘equally qualified’ and there’s no difference above that line.” According to the SFFA data, Asian and white students in the 10th decile of academic index score are 5-6 times as likely to be admitted as white and Asian students in the 5th decile (who have virtually no chance). But black and Hispanic students in the 5th decile are as likely or more likely to be admitted as white and Asian students in the 9th and 10th deciles. Thus, Harvard uses race to admit less qualified students—as measured by the very metric Harvard has established to measure qualifications.
Most people intuitively understand this without the explanation. They intuitively understand that grades and test scores establish a sliding scale of more or less qualified candidates.
Of course, should they be admitted and it is realized that they abused the definitions of race that society uses to group and classify people in some egregious way, they may face consequences for that.
And sure, I'm entirely sympathetic to the scientific observation that race is a myth, but in the actual USA, in actual 2024, basic physiological features like skin color, face shape, voice tone, hair texture will result in you receiving different treatment in many contexts. Whatever triggers such different treatment is what defines race on the ground (ignoring the equivalent set of things related to sex/gender).