I have a personal example of how a friendship helped me get a job. Out of college I didn't get any offers that I liked and was just hanging out at home (fwiw, a luxury that some disenfranchised groups are less likely to have). One of my friends had to decline her summer internship with late notice, but she told the manager to consider me.
I was qualified on paper. Given that it was such late notice, it probably made sense to just fly me in rather than restart the search. The interview went fine, and I was hired.
There is no way I would have gotten that internship if me and my friend weren't friends. Why? Because I'm pretty sure I applied to that company through the normal process and apparently I didn't make the cut. I did not do anything to suddenly become more of a qualified candidate between the time of that rejection and when they decided to give me a call, and yet I ended up with an internship that immediately led to a job and to which I've never really had a problem finding employment in the decade since.
As much as I like myself, I can think of plenty of classmates and friends who were harder-working and more experience and qualifications who had much harder professional paths. And I'm sure there are people who I don't know who are also more qualified than me.
So is my success "fair"? What does that word even mean? What is the most ideal form of "fair" hiring? The "best" candidate? Is there any company or profession in existence in which the definition of "best" doesn't immediately introduce a whole bunch of subjective factors. And if "best" is the priority, then how much is a company obligated to expand the geographical and chronological scope of their search to make absolutely sure they've found the best candidate possible?