It's not a secret - perhaps this source is more palatable to you, although it lacks exact figures: Mathematicians divided over faculty hiring practices that require proof of efforts to promote diversity - https://www.science.org/content/article/mathematicians-divid...

Or this one: Required ‘diversity and inclusion’ statements amount to a political litmus test for hiring - https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-universitys-new-loyalty-oat...

Or this one: Berkeley Weeded Out Job Applicants Who Didn't Propose Specific Plans To Advance Diversity - https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-diver...

Or this one: A recent report from the Goldwater Institute found that 80% of job postings for Arizona’s public universities required applicants to submit a statement detailing their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. - https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-new-loy...

Or how about directly from the horse's mouth: Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Will No Longer [i.e. they did until 2024] Require Diversity Statements - https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/6/4/dei-faculty-hiri...

And a few more admissions of past use of these statements:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/diversity-statements-u...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/us/politics/dei-statement...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/us/university-of-michigan...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/ucla-dei-statement.htm...

Oh, and just to show my statement on unofficial discrimination being higher wasn't uninformed speculation:

With State Bans on D.E.I., Some Universities Find a Workaround: Rebranding - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/diversity-ban-dei-coll...