> As long as people perceive a stimulus in a certain way (even if they have no rational reason to), it will have an effect that cannot easily be removed. The decisions that a CEO makes are important, but how others perceive them are also important to the very end, not just in the hiring or promotions processes.

Yup, this is plausible. It's also compatible with what the author says: “I want people to realize that we don’t live in a meritocracy, that we are judged by different standards. A quality that could be an asset in one group could be a liability in another.”

Unless of course you define meritocracy to include being on the right side of people's biases. The problem with this definition is that it is close to making every promotion decision meritocratic by definition.