> If a group as a whole is underrepresented in a highly competitive environment like academia, then presumably they have a harder time getting in or staying in.

> If a group as a whole is underrepresented in a highly competitive environment like academia, then presumably they have a harder time getting in or staying in. No, that is fallacious. It could also mean that fewer members of that group try to get in in the first place. That is because there are multiple stages to getting into academia. But the question I was referring to was about the final stage: getting into research math, and then minorities are already under-represented in the pool of people thinking about becoming a research mathematician. To put it simply, IF a person is a minority and is already in grad school, they will have an easier time going further simply because of equity hiring. That's all I meant.