This article relies on the fallacy that introducing diversity as a recruitment priority inevitably involves "more qualified" applicants being passed over.

No hiring board or executive search should ever permit an unqualified candidate through.  The end result of a staffing process should be a pool of candidates, every one of whom is capable of doing the job.  At that stage leadership should be looking for the "best fit", at which point diversity can be one of  the criteria that an institution uses to select from among qualified candidates.

Obviously, if there are simply no women, indigenous people, or members of diversity groups that are in a qualified pool, then so be it.  But when there is a qualified person from an underrepresented group, there is no compromise on merit.