By “the book” I meant a well thought out process that follows the law, protects parties in a dispute, prevents retaliation, encourages reporting, and is well documented and understood. I’m probably missing a bunch of other best practices - not a certified HR Specialist.
My only aim here was to distinguish between disputes that arise in politically charged areas vs. the handling of those disputes which, I would argue should not be charged at all but rather an efficient run-through of a dispute process that “works”.
Or, to use an analogy, consider interviewing someone who, when asked about their preferences and strategies for ensuring code quality, answers "I just write correct code in the first place". Even if they're correct in that statement, that's not the sort of person you want in charge of that subject, because most people don't work like that, even if they wish they could.
Not the same, differently?
Because the entire point of the law on protected classes is that people should be treated the same regardless of being a member or not of a protected class.
Non discrimination, not discrimination.
These aren’t really politically charged questions but rather questions about how to manage people and the issues that come with people. While the cause of the complaint may be politically charged, how one would handle the situation should be pretty by the book.