there are still work arounds...just like is currently done in california (AA has technically been illegal there a long time). It is similar to how southern states could disenfranchise black voters a long time after it was technically unconstitutional: you simply focus on things strongly correlated with race instead of speaking about race.
one of the annoying things about this case was that the lawyer arguing against affirmative actually really only spoke about its impact on asians. The truth is that a purley merit based admission system would not increase the asain student percent by even 1%. what would drastically change is the white population...especially poor whites. poor white people are shafted the most in this country.