> race was essentially used as a tie breaker between equally qualified candidates.

That’s demonstrably untrue. At Harvard, an Asian candidate at the top decile of academic index scores had roughly the same admissions rate as a black candidate in the 4th decile: https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti...

The candidates were basically competing in entirely different lanes based on race.

Then that's wrong, Harvard should not do it, and it would be good to try to create/enforce regulations that prevent them from doing it. However, that doesn't mean that all DEI efforts are bad.