You could argue that they were deserved (as Director Nolan did) but not that they were earned because Harvard, for instance, specifically was dropping more-qualified (by their criteria, sans race) candidates in favor of less-qualified (by their criteria, sans race) ones. This was a central point of their defense of affirmative action: if they can't use race and just go based on other qualifications, their racial diversity will drop, or they have to use different qualifications that place much less weight on academics, thereby damaging Harvard's academic excellence. Your premise is just wrong.

You don't "earn" immutable characteristics like race. You might deserve something because of the consequences of it, but you don't earn it.