I'd certainly agree that equality of opportunity is the aim. The issue is that in certain situations, you can't have that without forcing some outcomes, at least initially, in order to address systemic inequality of outcome.

Say you have a company with 100 employees, all white men. You have a job vacancy. The interview panel will be comprised of 5 white men. Two people show up for interview, a white man and a black woman. You can't argue that both have been invited for interview, therefore there is equality. The situation clearly favours the white male candidate, based on ethnicity and gender rather than ability to do the job. Say both candidates are good, but the black woman would be 3% better at the job... do you really think they wouldn't hire the white male?