Yeah, but the point is it was still just an excuse. They could have fired any of dozens of white male incompetents and promoted Adams, but they didn't, because they were protecting the existing power structure. I wonder how many other people got told the same line? I haven't done a census of phone company executives ever but I'd be willing to bet there aren't more than a token handful of minorities in leadership positions (half of them with titles like diversity officer). So it was just a line.

Regardless of who he's replacing, promoting Adams would make things worse for them, because they'd be seen to still be promoting white men. They created the problem by discriminating, so they are required to discriminate differently until the problem is resolved. This is going to take a long time, because they are also not expanding their management ranks, so it only proceeds at the pace of turnover.

I'm sure Adams' contention would be they can't fire incompetents because it takes someone competent and powerful to identify them.

All agreed. Just providing a little pushback against the notion that it's all "political correctness"'s fault when the primary obstacle to achievement is the fact that nobody's getting out of the way.

If you stopped hiring blacks, specifically, because the Chilean subsidiary missed its numbers on account of an earthquake and now you have to make budget cutbacks, your black non-employees are not being inconvenienced by an earthquake. They are being inconvenienced by the fact that you took circumstances you had no control over and decided to address them with a policy you could control, and your policy was racial discrimination.

CC: American universities with a pallette swap.

What, Chile? If they stop hiring everyone, they stop hiring everyone. That's not a discrimination issue either, just like the general lack of room for advancement in mature industries that are run by lifers.