The situation isn't so simple for African Americans (or other URMs) but I think a good example of this argument can be seen in the Soviet Union. Medical schools were quite competitive there as well, and spots for Jews were quite limited. The end result was the Moldavian majority in our socialist Republic had much more spots open, and thus they had much less competition in comparison to Jews, who had to outperform their peers. I don't think this played a small part in people considering Moldavian doctors butchers while Jewish doctors were generally sought after. Obviously there would have been crappy Jewish doctors as well as brilliant Moldavian doctors (one of whom played a major role in my life, sneaking me out of a **** hospital and treating severe burns with an experimental cream) however, again, I don't think these associations were conjured from thin air considering the openly anti-Semitic society. In the end greater competition will result generally in greater talent coming out on top.
As far as African American students go, they are almost always at a huge disadvantage in education as well as in their social environments. An affluent white kid with highly educated parents, who always push their child, surrounded by other driven kids, getting a diploma is expected; the same can't be expected of the poor black kid growing up in Detroit, where the functional literacy rate is bellow 50%, where a small minority graduate on time (if at all), where nobody expects you to succeed. Adversity shouldn't be discounted by a lower score. I'm not afraid to admit I have a helluva a lot more respect for the girl in my social phsych class who wanted to be a social worker, and who had gotten where she was in spite of having every single one of her close girlfriends drop out after getting pregnant, than I would for a guy like me, who still had to work their ass off to get into medical school, but never had to deal with the ugliness of the real world, and who was supported by their loved ones the whole way through their education. Where your example would really shine would be the affluent African American Student who was handed everything on a silver platter, who didn't face the adversity of their African American counterparts, and rode their URM status into a medical school, when really weren't good enough, and shouldn't have landed an acceptance.
I really don't know DO school admissions to judge them, but if they do take "mediocre" students, it is more than fair to assume that on the whole they'd churn out doctors who, on average, would be of poorer quality than MD programs. Politeness doesn't change reality, and I don't see the point in sugar coating these things. But, again, I must strongly emphasize that I don't know, and so I'd be an arrogant ass to assume something like this, not to mention a hypocrite, because I feel that the MCAT and GPA are very poor signs in determining whether a person would make a great doctor.
