I used to work somewhere that had a bunch of "women in STEM" hiring pipelines associated with local colleges that were used to hire for entry level roles.

It didn't really affect engineering quality because like most workplaces pretty much everyone was nice enough and qualified enough.

The interesting effect the hiring pipeline did have was that it acted like a dragnet catching a broader cross section of the population. The end result that the group of women working there was much more diverse in background the group of men working there and I think there is a lot of merit in that.

I am very much in favor of giving the job to the candidate who has less going for them, all else being equal and creating hiring pipelines to increase the ratio of their resumes that cross hiring managers' desks. But having race, gender or other things people don't get to choose as part of your first pass filter on applicants seems like it's likely to further the problem it's attempting to solve if applied widely enough and on a long enough timeline.