Given 2 equally smart people. The one that has the opportunity to take more AP/Honors will have more opportunity to get a higher GPA.
It comes back to the question of what universities should prioritize. Should they be optimizing for the fairest / most equal student body, or the most gifted / competitive student body?
What you want is the most talented, hardest working, brightest students. That's difficult to discern given the differences in the availability of opportunity. Scaling for availability is hard.
But it is clear that just selecting for the students who succeeded in the best environment will leave you missing out on potential. And worse, that rapidly becomes self-reinforcing, since the next generation of students will be influenced by your choices on this one.
Also, GPA is not a great measure of student quality. IRT [1,2] is better.
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1434976 [2] https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...
If we're saying that AP tests and classes are too easy, then of course people can have a discussion about increasing difficulty.
Stats from https://www.totalregistration.net/AP-Exam-Registration-Servi...
That and babysitting so parents can work without their kids setting the house on fire.