https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_Gay
We all remember how the President of Harvard University got busted for plagiarizing her work. She still rakes in big money from Harvard, even though any Harvard student caught plagiarizing would presumably be expelled.
But the President was a DEI token. she "Didn't Earn It".
Its a safe bet to say that most DEI tokens "didn't earn it", and in fact plagiarized their work.
So lets do this...
Lets use Harvard, to make an example for everyone to see.
Harvard has already been busted, and Harvard has has plenty of time to do whatever it is they are going to do.
I had a little more confidence than you did back then. I too, worked hard and got good grades. Often a boy in one of my elective classes would ridicule me with 'Brown Noser,' 'Suck up', etc., whenever our papers were handed back and he saw my A+. This classmate had a repaired hairlip scar from infancy and was the disruptive goofy class clown, the kid who never turned his homework in on time and the kid that always had to interrupt or crack some joke, because (I assumed) it was his way of dealing with his insecurity about his 'less than ideal looks'.
When he did this to me, I would laugh it off. But, one day I said to him, "Tom, you are just as smart as I am, and if you would just do your homework and stop goofing off, you'd get an A, too." He looked stunned at that comment, and went quiet. And, to my surprise, for the rest of the year he stopped acting up, turned his homework in on time and became an A student. It's as though he just needed someone to tell him they saw his potential. That was an important lesson to learn.
That is an interesting and inspiring little anecdote!