Hacker News Reader

It's not at all obvious what he meant. Could be a number of things. So far in this thread, it's more of a Rorschach test.

Nah, this is a lot of projection. More likely fanfic: could be that the one who got tenure had the former advisor who would add her to grants and bring in a lot of $$, or who started a center that would bring in a lot of $$.

Routine research often is easier to get through funding committees and get published. Less "what journal does this fit in, I'm not sure our division should fund this, does the PI truly have the expertise needed to do research in this, this result doesn't clearly advance the field"

Why is that obvious?

Because the influential groups that care most about "desirable backgrounds" in academia are those promoting DEI.

Given that both were women, gender wasn't the deciding factor. And so race becomes the most likely desirable background to matter.

Some school systems are very explicit about this. See https://pacificlegal.org/california-globe-university-of-cali... for criticism of the UC schools on this. But as https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/02/04/american-... makes clear, the trend is happening nationwide.