also, I want to share that OP's original point reflects common hiring practice at my former employer, which is a federal Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) in the South (i.e. majority of students are first-generation college, immigrants, people of color) whose faculty is overwhelmingly white and predominantly male. The diversity hires, that I was aware of, tended to favor White and "model minority" candidates over equally (or better qualified) URM candidates, even though it's obvious that the students would be better served by hiring more professors that reflect the demographics of the student body. There are plenty of highly qualified candidates these days, so to me the biggest problem is bias on the part of many hiring and tenure committees.