[mattrighetti]

Because it moves the hiring focus from skills and "meritocracy" to something that should be irrelevant: age, tattoos, hair color etc.

Skills give value to an organization making it more competitive and productive, your appearance does not. If you make decisions on who to hire based on the former you're basically saying "Guy X is better than guy Y but I'm gonna hire Y because some people are offended by the fact that we're not 50/50", which is obvious in every single part of life.

Also, I know a lot of friends that are saddened by their hiring process and they feel like they've been hired just because the HR had to and not because they were the top choices.

But yeah, this is controversial nowadays so I don't really try to put it out there at all and let it be.