Your ideas about what quotas and positive discrimination are almost certainly wrong and the work of people who either heard the words ans assumed they knew everything there was to know or who are seething that they can no longer discriminate.

The reality is that for any given position, there is a range of applicants of different races and genders, any of whom is qualified for the role.

The belief that organisations are forced to say "Well this person has every degree offered by Harvard and is a leader in our field. Unfortunately the quota says we need a black person so let's hire this high school drop out who turned up to the interview drunk" is pure bullshit.

Also, the absense of these systems doesn't create a meritocracy, it creates discrimination. We know this from seeing it over and over again before these systems were implemented. Straight white men of a social class hire other straight white men from the same social class and then claim that they just always seem to be the most qualified candidate.

If they genuinely are, it shouldn't be difficult to prove it should it?