This is a subject I am deeply ambivalent about. On the one hand, there is merit in the concept. On the other, one has to be blind, willfully or not, to the facts of implicit bias and generational advantage to be a true believer.
The question is: what's the alternative to a meritocracy?
It's pretty much what we have today but the veneer of meritocracy is what makes it insidious. There is rarely anything more dangerous than people who don't realize what they're doing because people can't change what they don't realize they are doing.