For better or worse, popular society has become a
lot better at detecting dog whistles. "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles.
I don't find the discussion itself objectionable, but I also don't want to grant intellectual capital to anybody who is going to use a controversial topic in bad faith to control the discussion. I don't want to be used to legitimize more extreme views. Sometimes people don't bring these topics up in bad faith, but it's been my experience that they're the minority.
FWIW, I don't live in Silicon Valley or in CA.