"Silicon Valley turned out to be even less of a meritocracy than many of its critics had anticipated: Fully 70 per cent of its work force was male, and 60 per cent was white."
What race/gender mix would a perfect meritocracy produce? No one knows! So this statistic reflects only the institutions' race/gender diversity, not how meritocratic they are.
By all means call out discrimination where it can be proven. Discrimination denies people the opportunity to prove their merit. Society loses when talent is stifled. However, that an institution's employee race/gender mix differs from that of society does not prove anything.