Right. Some of us are old enough to remember Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in the 90s[1]. One of the ways they attacked racism was to find a large corporation where the racial diversity of the employees didn't match that of the local community. They couldn't just sue the company yet then, so they would start a media campaign, promising boycotts and demonstrations, unless the corporation changed its ways. Many large corporations did, signing agreements with Jackson's organization promising to do better, and making a kind donation to the organization to help to continue the work.

So even before disparate impact became a legal threat to corporations, executives were feeling the pressure to comply with whatever the current expectations were on the matter.

[1] https://www.rainbowpush.org/push