By "references" does he mean "cherry-picked people from my life who will say only good things about me"? No one I provide as a reference to a job at Apple is going to say something mean about me or a book they may or may not have even read. The only "due diligence" that seems to be demanded here is reading candidates' books (imagine a recruiter actually going through the effort of picking up a book and combing through all of it for just a single candidate) or looking through public social media posts (but the problematic ones may have likely only been shared in a private network).

I do think AGM's comments should disqualify him as a candidate to work in a diverse work environment. But I don't want hiring to be more exhausting than it already is on either side, so aren't situations like this the reason we have work at-will arrangements anyway? What could Apple really have done here to prevent this? "Sign here attesting that you haven't ever said anything that could point to you being a prejudiced person in the work environment". If it turns out you did say something pretty bad, then too bad you had to relocate for this job because the offer is withdrawn.

I'm sympathetic, I _know_ I've posted really stupid "edgy" things on social media some time between the ages of 12-15 that's likely buried in a set of redundant servers somewhere in the world. Stuff that would get me fired immediately if I said and believed them today. How do you convincingly demonstrate to an employer _and_ to your coworkers that the person from then isn't you anymore?