The company I worked at had a diversity interview rule like this, but it’s not really clear to me how it’s legal. Isn’t it literally making hiring decisions based on protected attributes?
The final decision should be based on merit, otherwise it would be discriminatory and also self-sabotaging.
If unqualified people get their time wasted by being invited because they fulfill some diversity quality, but no skill quality; I'll put the blame on the system that imposes the rule.
I see what you mean, but even the act of choosing to interview a candidate (or not) based on a protected attribute seems like it would be illegal, since whether or not someone interviews at all is generally a function of the "merit" seen in their resume (or lack thereof).
For example, if someone selling a house chose which prospective buyers were allowed to tour the house based on race, I assume that would definitely be illegal, even if the "final decision" on who to sell to was ostensibly not based on it.
This is essentially the Rooney Rule. It's not saying that the candidate must have protected attribute X, but that the candidate pool must have variants of X.
I think the courts would take a dim view of claiming that a procedure to partly mitigate bias regarding attribute X is somehow illegal discrimination along the same attribute.
