And likely a woman of color. Thus completely undermining them before they even start. Even if if they are a fine candidate, everyone will know that they are there because of their race and gender, with their personal strengths distinctly secondary. They will not be able to answer the question, "Do you think you would be standing here if you were a white man with the same qualifications?"

Don't get me wrong - affirmative action is a great thing, but not if it's formulated as an obligatory handout to "certain segments of the population". Affirmative action should be affirming the positive qualities of the candidates, things that they themselves made of themselves, and not their "race" or gender, over which we have little control(*).

I am reminded by contrast of George Romero. In an interview, he said that generations of film students had analyzed Night of the Living Dead as a parable about race, and while it's true that everything in the US ends up being about race at some point, that people are strangely disappointed to discover that the script was written before any of the casting, and that he cast Duane Jones in the lead simply because he was the best actor at the auditions.

(* - People do change gender of course, but I mean that we have little or no control over which gender we identify with. Few would choose to be gay or trans, given the prejudices in society.)