It sounds like socioeconomic status is correlated with race in America [0], there’s a strong correlation between one’s socioeconomic status and one’s ability to enforce self-isolation and social distancing [1], and there’s a clear causal relationship between self-isolation and social distancing and one’s likelihood of contracting COVID19.
So it doesn’t seem too hard to see how NYU doesn’t believe race to have a causal relationship with disease severity without resorting to claims that “political correctness” is influencing their analysis.
[0] Hard to object to this, given the institutional racism present in the country.
[1] Many essential jobs (sanitation, public transit, supermarket, food prep, warehouse worker, etc.) are not well paid and don’t offer the flexibility to preventatively take paid sick leave and/or work from home.