The CEOs are facing lot of social shaming for not having more "URMs" and female employees but it's illegal to actively reject candidates merely for being white/asian and male, which make up the majority of qualified candidates for many roles.
So, the "trick" seems to be that CEOs are telling their recruiters to actively recruit candidates that are non-white/east asian and non-male as much as possible.
So, for example, they might recruit 10 candidates for a role, and make sure that 80% of them are "URMs" or female, based on looking at their LinkedIn profile picture/name.
In other words, they very deliberately pass over qualified candidates on the basis of them being white/east asian males. Clearly this is racial/gender discrimination but, by virtue of the candidates not knowing they were passed over, and not having actually been interviewed, it seems to be legal?
The discriminated-against people have no standing because they can't prove anything, at least not without going to court, and that would require standing I assume.
The hushed tones that people discuss these policies seems to indicate that they know it's legally grey, but I'm curious how legal it is.
All the time.
In fact, it's pretty much required.
If it weren't, they wouldn't bother with interviews, and instead would just hire whatever person first said, "do you have a job?"
Here's the other thing about "discrimination" - you can [almost] never prove someone illegally discriminated against you.
I'm white and male (two instastrikes for some places in today's politically-correct climate). But was I not contacted because I'm white and male? If so, then the other few 100 millions white males should sue for discrimination, because they were passed-over, too.
You wanna hire "under-represented minorities" or women? Cool. Recruit whomever you want.
The "unlawful" discrimination comes when I, or someone else also qualified (but not fitting your looks-based "criteria") apply and you turn me down because I don't fit your looks-based criteria. So if you're going to turn me down, you had better have some documented reasons from the interview process (and trust me, this isn't especially hard) that pass the legal sniff test over discrimination :)
I want to hire people who can do the job.
I don't care what skin color you have, or whether you've got a penis or a vagina - the only thing that matters is: can you do the job?
Maybe more accurately, "can you do the job here?"
However, companies that have diversity goals have not been found to be discriminatory as it’s been argued that the diversity goals create a multicultural environment that benefits the business. A company cannot and would not list a candidate as being rejected because of their race or because the company needed to meet a quota. As you said it’s a gray area.
As a hiring manager at a previous company, I was explicitly told by HR to automatically move all female candidates to the phone screen step, regardless of their resume, to improve our chances to get a "diversity hire". I assume HR knew what they were doing from the point of view of the law.
That being said, this is just one anecdote. I have not seen it at another employer. I don't know how common it is.