I have been apart of interviews (at a computer repair shop, mostly men) where my boss said we had to hire the only woman interviewee because it looked bad to not to, and we needed diversity, even though she wasn’t very qualified. So we hired her instead of the person who had excelled in the interview.
At my next job we had some diversity hires. It was pre-DEI, but we had a diversity intern program. We hired a guy because he was black, he was qualified and was amazing. Later we hired a person who was also black and wasn’t very qualified, they struggled for months and eventually quit - we had hired them based on skin color too.
Not saying I’m for or against, but I’ve seen situations where diversity became more important than qualifications. I’ve also seen where both were equally important, and that was preferred.
Possibly. In that situation the people were grateful to be hired, and they worked hard anyway. They didn’t express any qualms about how they were hired. If they did, maybe they kept it to themselves.