I had a discussion about this a while back and someone pointed out that for all the talk about Starfleet being open-minded and human culture being so enlightened at this point, there was still quite a bit of bigotry towards certain races, particularly Klingons.
This same episode gave us flashbacks of young Torres opening a sandwich to find a classmate had placed live worms in it.
How the hell does a kid born to a supposedly enlightened, tolerant culture learn about that?
At least DS9 had Quark, who always called out the Federation members for exactly this stuff. I was frankly surprised that Voyager even went there because…well, Voyager.
B- “I think so, but then I suppose my opinion doesn’t really count.”
K- “It counts, but don’t forget- this is still your fault.”
This was the absolute best meta moment in the history of Star Trek ever.
(For everyone on my dash who is unfamiliar with Deep Space Nine, the two actors were a couple and Nana Visitor had gotten pregnant. Rather than hide her behind bags and other props, the writers ingeniously had her character become a surrogate when a coworker’s wife becomes injured and she was the only other female around to transfer the fetus into. Because, Star Trek 🙂 Bashir the doc was the one who did the procedure. )