A friend of mine (in an entirely different industry) went through five rounds of interviews with a company and got passed over for someone internal.

A little while later, the same company reached out and encouraged him to apply again. Five rounds later, and he got passed over a second time.

Fast forward two years and they reached out to him a third time. He's basically convinced that because he's black he's their token DEI interview candidate to make them feel better about themselves while internally promoting the people they actually want, but of course they wouldn't actually say that.

This is the reason. If they make any statement you could contest it in court, so they don't make any statement