Does DEI Result in Race-Based / Sex-Based Hiring?

Yes.

100%.

Beyond any doubt.

I've seen it.

I know others who've seen it--other instances of it, not just the same ones I've seen.

Remember, academia was cheating before "diversity"/DEI even became a thing.

DEI--formerly "diversity"--is an expression of leftist biases in academia and an instrument for advancing them. It's not the source of the bias.

To repeat myself repeating myself: the very first search committee I was ever on was outright told by the dean (via the chair) that if we didn't hire a woman the position would be rescinded. 

(I strenuously objected, as you might imagine, but was begged not to make waves--the department was tiny (three philosophers, two religious scholars) at that point and considered itself in real--if not imminent--danger of being eliminated. A reasonable concern, especially given that the president of the university had recently announced the dissolution of the physics department (yes, the physics department)...and it was known by all parties, across the entire university, that this was because the chair of physics was also the president of the faculty senate, and he was a vocal opponent of the president. And president Stalin just got fed up with him. You can't fire a tenured professor like that...unless you eliminate the entire department. Which the president did. (Note: about a year later, after a nonstop fight, we were informed that none of this had ever happened--it was all a misunderstanding... Physics wasn't...and had never been!...eliminated. But I know. I was there for the announcement. I was the first person to boo...). So, if a university will eliminate a large and thriving physics department, it certainly won't hesitate to eliminate a tiny, non-thriving philosophy and religion department... Anyway, I gave in and agreed not to make a stink. Not proud of it. But that's what happened.)

In fact, our late provost illegally rewrote our hiring guidelines specifically to streamline demography-based hiring.

On this point, as on so many points, the left just lives in an alternate universe.