I understand the opposition to affirmative action-type grants, but there's a fairly sound reason behind it, at least it's usually given one in the law:

It's not discrimination if you give an advantage or benefit to a group that has traditionally been disadvantaged by discrimination in the past.

There's no denying that African-Americans, to name but one group, were severely held back up till the 1960s in the US. That kind of damage takes a long time to undo, since virtually the entire culture was forced into a lesser socio-economic state than most others.
Giving preferrential treatment to minorities may be unfair and hard to justify, but there are reasons for it. When someone's been the victim of racism for generations, you can't make everything right just by saying, "well, OK, from now on you'll get the same treatment as everyone else, but no help to break the cycles of poverty and poor education that've been afflicting you more than anyone else."