> That statement doesn't simply "follow from DEI objectives." Was that bar for performance standards explicit? implicit? or, like a lot of other replies here, hyperbole?

The person simply couldn't do the job and was profoundly incompetent, and the response was to that was to repeatedly be told to spend more time training them. My friend had previously successfully terminated a white employee who was under-performing but turned out to be more competent than this one.