It's been a few years, and I never could entirely explain that aspect, but he won. The concept of using surrogates for race in employment decisions was used to argue successfully that by acknowledging that I was giving preference to applicants with an advanced degree, when that degree was not a job requirement, I was acknowledging a proxy form of racism. Because of the "disparate racial impact" (their exact phrase), hiring the credentialed minority applicant was racist. It's not supposed to make sense; it's government.