I feel this maybe a flawed approach and there could be a better way to address diversity without going down the quotas approach.
What do think?
The answer is similar to the answer for problems that have been recently highlighted by the Ferguson catastrofuck.
And that answer is to figure out how to remove systemic and often institutionalized biases and narratives that have been baked into our society and in turn the heads of individuals growing up and living in it. That's the first step. The second is to figure out a solution to the income inequality that opens so many doors for some, and keeps them closed for so many others. It's about creating a fair playing field for everyone, where a theoretical, honest to god meritocracy could actually perhaps exist.
How does one go about doing that? No fucking clue.
Feel free to adjust the percentages below, but this is what you should aim for to eventually get to gender diversity (for example):
Tell recruiters you want 50% of the qualified candidates they send to you to be female.
Evaluate resumes in a form stripped of as much identifying information as possible.
Half of all candidates interviewed should be female. If not, try to identify an additional upstream bias, perhaps at the resume evaluation stage (example: Women have less free time for side projects, so make sure that when you evaluate a Github account it is for quality not quantity).
Aim for diversity in your interviewers. Half of the interviewing employees should be female. If that isn't possible, at least one of the interviewing employees must be female (and if you only have one interviewing female employee, she should get a 'creep factor' veto, especially if anyone else in the company (like a founder) has a veto. If that isn't possible (because you have no female employees), fix it and hire a woman already.
That's it. No need for actual hiring quotas after that point, you should be able to hire for merit out of the interviewees. If you end up not being gender diverse (ie. only industry average or below), figure out why (perhaps an existing interviewing employee is setting of their 'creep factor' alarms so they don't accept your offer, or there is a promotion bias and talented women aren't sticking around after you hire them).
In parallel, you can make similar efforts around race, etc.
Also, a meritocratic system only requires the "winners" are chosen on the merit of their work. It will never be possible to eliminate all disadvantages which might prevent somebody from achieving some abstract concept of potential.
Like a blind person can't be made to see, but screen reading software and braille text is still better then not having those things.
It lays out requirements for a legal quota system.