These kinds of policies are also massively unfair to the exact people you are trying to hire. I know lots of engineers who would fit into the cliche "diversity" categories who are skilled and deserving of their job. But now they have to wonder if they were hired for merit or to meet some sort of a quota.
The whole thing breeds resentment and drives teams further apart, in fact it creates the exact problems DEI is purported to solve.
In this case there was no competition. The person I hired was the most qualified of their peer group: all black men.
We don’t get a plethora of good candidates through the normal recruiters anyway so there would be no way to know one way or the other how they would have stacked up in a wider job pool. I found one person that was solid so I felt I got kind of lucky. Restricting applicants by ANY criteria (diploma, work history, age, race, etc) in this market seems insane. My most recent HR insanity is an in office requirement. Candidates bail so fast. I don’t hide it though; there’s no reason to string someone alone that doesn’t want to meet the in office requirement I have no control over. And I don’t fault anyone for refusing to work in office for some portion of the work year.
The whole thing breeds resentment and drives teams further apart, in fact it creates the exact problems DEI is purported to solve.