I thought the author did their very best to steer clear of actually going into the affirmative action issue itself, instead focusing purely on Penn’s reaction to the debacle. He even says as much, at one point:

> I will not state here whether I agree or disagree with Amy Wax's controversial opinions about affirmative action, about bourgeois culture, or about what are the appropriate remedies for past racial wrongs.

Seems to me like there is little room in this article to (fail to) acknowledge anything about the merits of affirmative action.

In fact, reading between the lines of that one paragraph, i would wager he does agree with you. But he doesn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of getting him to say it.

Edit: rest of that paragraph, for context:

> I won't say, because it's completely irrelevant to the points I'm making here; and, because to state that "I certainly don't agree with Wax on A, B, or C, but ..." would be to concede far too much to the thought police. It would be a transparent attempt to gain credibility with them before criticizing their reactions to Wax, and I refuse to acknowledge their authority over me in that way. […]

Hear, hear.