It’s ironic that this stance is actually racist, since it implies certain races perform worse.

There are many reasons for this to be the case [1] not just the classic "this race is inferior at test taking".

[1] Pre WWI, WWII Germany famously tested students for acedemic performance. During WWII and times of food scarcity from Allied blockades test performance dropped by greater than 10%. Same students, same race, different conditions.

Typically well fed, well exercised, unstressed, groups with sound economic security, home ownership, etc perform very well on tests.

Let's just point out that testing in question took place across all areas of Germany, not just those famously occupied by the elite intelligensia that were moved on, also the rural areas occupied by the beer swilling fraus and blue eyed leden hosen knee slappers, and that test results improved with food quality.

It doesn't take an Einstein to ANOVA.

Lots of blame levied at a strawman white culture. If only there’d be a concomitant critique of the problematic groups at hand. Alas, that’s verboten under the current regime.

Lowering expectations for those under their patronage only makes advantage easier for me and mine. Good luck to them and their token positions.

It is useful to define terms. Merriam-Webster has what I believe is a quite useful definition of racism: "a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race".

That is a useful definition because it helps to separate a racist interpretation of test scores from a non-racist interpretation. The racist interpretation is to jump to a conclusion of fundamental inferiority in academics. The non-racist interpretation is to acknowledge and emphasize the environmental factors that can lead an historically oppressed/displaced/enslaved minority to underperform academically, to acknowledge that African-born immigrants do quite well on standardized testing, and also to understand that standardized tests are normed on academic success, which creates a causality issue when measuring groups that have historically not been allowed in academic institutions. Perhaps all of those arguments don't hold water: or at least the pitcher holding them has holes of its own. But it is quite erroneous to jump to a conclusion of racial biological determinism, and that is what the racist conclusion would be.

There is a particular kind of fallacy where a person can, seemingly unconsciously, take what are perfectly valid observations, like the test-taking disparities, and spin them into non-evidential overarching beliefs. This happens all too commonly when it comes to scientific (or at least metrical) observations and racism. People were all too eager to embrace phrenology, IQ testing, evolutionary biology, etc. when it confirmed their cultural preconception that their race was superior. All of those areas, even phrenology, had some scientific merit to them (and still do in the case of IQ testing and evolutionary biology), but that merit is lost when the conclusions get spun into non-evidential belief systems like racist ideology. Seemingly (I can't peer into their heads, really) skepticism is lost in a chase for the personal gratification of a belief of fundamental superiority.

Discussions around academic standards are a case in point. Academic standards change quite frequently. The Oregon requirement we're discussing was only instituted in the early 2010's. When race is not part of the discussion, it is entirely normal for educators to say that a new standardized test doesn't really have evidence it serves the population and to remove it. There is a very lively debate amongst educators about how excessive measurement, i.e. standardized test taking, can interfere with the normal give-and-take of teaching. But, if the evidence is that non-native-English speakers are underserved, or that African-Americans are underserved, suddenly it is 'racist' to remove a requirement or hurdle. What I saw in the two articles is that those in favor of removing the requirement saw a lack of evidence it was beneficial, and saw evidence that it was not beneficial; while those opposed had no evidence other than it would graduate 'dumber' students; ignoring the fact that presumably dumber students were being graduated before the 2010's when the program was instituted.

In short, it is often a smokescreen to say that observations about race are racist, because that makes it impossible to act against inequality, or sometimes even to act at all. Once again, racism is the belief of one race's inherent superiority over another.