There is a chasm between early outreach and modifying standards. Outreach that gets more people interested in aviation - that brings out the best of a more diverse and well qualified pool of candidates to United is just good policy. Full stop. Nobody is lowering standards and we get to build good pilots from the ground up with this program, so strawmanning one for the other is a lazy argument.
Agree with Vernon that we could probably all do better at encouraging the little girl or boy from any background to come up and check out the flight deck and not feel it’s a hassle. We have a really great profession but it hasn’t always been a really welcoming one.