There is a material difference between "paying too much" and "not paying enough". Clearly they want to be on the former side and not the latter.

They're not "depressing men's wages" -- just giving them lower raises. No one's salary suddenly went down.

If you've been underpaying women in a discriminatory way while pretending to be a meritocracy, the real fix is to pay women more.

But if you suddenly raise salaries for all the women, it proves you were never a meritocracy.

To keep up your pretense while also fixing your mistakes, your only option is to slow raises in order to restore fairness over time -- which is what they did.

The third option would be to reduce men's salaries, which of course wouldn't be possible.