It may not have much value in a coal mine, but I suspect it is highly valuable even from a purely commercial/competitive perspective in industries and workplace

It may not have much value in a coal mine, but I suspect it is highly valuable even from a purely commercial/competitive perspective in industries and workplaces that are creating/maintaining products or services for a large or broad audience. > you're forming up an artificial construct that ultimately results in poorer overall performance (since you had to reject a number of candidates that likely were more qualified for the position in order to reach your equal distribution goals). That's precisely where I disagree. Again, in a coal mine you might just want to hire for simple traits that can be easily evaluated per individual (like physical strength). But on the types of teams I mentioned, the diversity of experiences and opinions across the team probably matters as much or even more than the sum of every individual's "talents." I would guess that this diversity becomes more important the larger the team gets and the larger the audience for their products/services gets. To be clear, I also suspect that more diverse teams are more difficult to hire and manage effectively, and that's probably a big reason that some companies either don't care about diversity or actively resist the suggestion to increase their diversity.