Cool story bro. Anyway ...

"Numerous studies demonstrate that without fair hiring practices in place, certain groups of people are often favored over others due to unconscious biases.

A study by the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley found that applicants with white-sounding names received 9% more callbacks compared to those with African-American-sounding names, despite having similar qualifications[1]. In some companies, this gap widened to nearly 19%[1].

Research from the UK showed that white candidates were favored in about 47% of hiring tests, with ethnic minority candidates needing to send twice as many applications to receive the same number of callbacks[6]. A more recent study by the University of Oxford found that candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds had to send 80% more applications to get the same results as white British applicants[6].

Gender bias has also been documented. A study on science faculty hiring revealed that identical applications randomly assigned male or female names resulted in men being rated as more competent and hireable, and even offered higher starting salaries[6].

These biases persist even in organizations committed to diversity. Research suggests that firms may unconsciously favor candidates from privileged backgrounds, such as those able to take unpaid internships, which introduces socioeconomic bias[7].

Without fair hiring practices, these studies consistently show that white candidates, males, and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tend to be favored in the hiring process, highlighting the need for interventions to reduce bias and promote equity in recruitment."

Citations: [1] https://eliinc.com/unconscious-bias-hiring-study/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConservatives/comments/1afg9v3/does_diversity_hiringdei_make_you_doubt_if/ [3] https://www.northwestern.edu/provost/policies-procedures/faculty-searches/resources/unconscious-bias-research.pdf [4] https://www.beapplied.com/post/fair-hiring-your-go-to-manual-for-de-biased-recruitment [5] https://vidcruiter.com/video-interviewing/hiring-biases/ [6] https://www.beapplied.com/post/recruitment-bias-report-how-bias-affects-hiring-and-how-to-remove-it [7] https://hbr.org/2021/02/research-how-companies-committed-to-diverse-hiring-still-fail [8] https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/are_merit_based_systems_actually_fair [9] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4554714/

That's the thing though, these biases against people based on their ethnicity and gender already exist, whether the people doing the hiring realize it or not. The best people may lose out on job opportunities because of these qualities. The whole point of DEI is to compensate for these biases.