All of it is law, albeit a specific interpretation of the law. ‘legitimate business purpose’ discrimination has always been allowed, which is why it’s okay to

All of it is law, albeit a specific interpretation of the law. ‘legitimate business purpose’ discrimination has always been allowed, which is why it’s okay to only hire black actors for a role that calls for black actors in a movie, or only pretty young women as strippers, etc. Also, discrimination like ‘I just don’t like them’. Illegal discrimination is where the hiring person is discriminated based on a protected class where it is not a legitimate business need [https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protected-employment-discrimination#:~:text=Applicants%2C%20employees%20and%20former%20employees,(including%20family%20medical%20history) https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protecte....] There are a million different ways to structure these rules however (and actually do hiring) with different entirely predictable outcomes in actual employee race/sex/gender composition. As well as different types of employment environments that when interacting with regional cultural/socialization backgrounds, will result in entirely predictable outcomes in actual employee race/sex/gender/national origin/age compositions. For example, you aren’t going to find many supermodels working at the local sewer treatment plant. Or blandly ugly people working in the entertainment industry. However, depending on the organization and size (the federal gov’t has had this since the 70’s, and it’s been expanding over the years to even large companies the last 10ish or so), there is a federal requirement for Affirmative Action as well, where if the company/org, etc. doesn’t have the ‘right amount’ of people who meet course these criteria determined by the department of labor, then there is a presumption that it proves ‘defacto’ illegal discrimination. There is no need for candidates being discriminated against illegally at that point to show they are being discriminated against (and in fact, they may not actually be discriminated against in any explicit or conscious way) - the mere fact they are not there in a given % of representation is taken of evidence of that discrimination. That means if a company/organization gets too much attention, then they are required to actually discriminate against other candidates to ensure the outcomes of their hiring and retention roughly match what the DOL would expect. Regardless of the actual circumstances/suitability of their hiring. That also means if someone is ‘over represented’, then that means they’ll be discriminated against quite consistently and per the department of labor, ‘legally’. It’s essentially a ‘necessary evil’. The backlash now appears to be targeting anything related to those efforts, nominally under the idea of meritocracy, but eh, that is frankly not a very convincing figleaf. And yes, it will be targeting everyone who isn’t.. well, you can guess.