If it can be shown that Google refused to interview certain candidates because of their race or sex, that is illegal discrimination, regardless of the demographics of Google's workforce.
I mean, an email explicitly saying "We should only consider L3s from our underrepresented groups" seems pretty clear no? Or did you not read the article?
I see that there is a claim that such an email exists. I don't think this has actually been established yet. Even if this email was sent, I expect that either we'll find that in context it wasn't exclusionary (e.g. the group in question was to be dedicated to hiring from underrepresented groups, while other groups handled candidates from all backgrounds), or we'll find that it was in contravention to Google's policies on the issue. We'll also eventually learn that objecting to this email was not why the plaintiff was fired.
