Why do people/companies go to two extremes over this? I can see what the Google engineer wanted to point out. He's simply saying that companies get aggressive

Why do people/companies go to two extremes over this? I can see what the Google engineer wanted to point out. He's simply saying that companies get aggressive in trying to improve diversity at the expense of merit. Does that mean there are no competent employees of non-white-male backgrounds? If Google really thought that they disagree with this employee, just prove it. Why such a furor?