Your anecdote is interesting because it shows who people's preconceptions colour their perception of events. Let's look at alternative explanations of what happened, with no offence intended towards you.
But each year at Ranking and Rating, there was a pointed questioning, only about the minority female technical employees, that was HR-driven. "What is your justification for not ranking this employee higher?" "What are you doing to make sure that this employee is promotion-ready next year?" On the basis of those directed questioning, one of the minority women was given a specific high-profile task by my manager, which she completed competently. On the basis of that task that was steered to her based on her gender and skin color, she was promoted.
It sounds like HR had identified specific issue in the company and was monitoring it. An employee was then promoted based on merit. If there is any fault here, it's that HR didn't make enough effort to check that other employees were given the same opportunities.
My department was given an extra FTE from magical goodness-knows-where to interview and extend an offer to this lady. You NEVER get free headcount--but I did. So, we interviewed her, but found she had already accepted another offer from another (non-competitor) firm. I was then authorized to beat their offer to get her on our team, and did. So, we ended up with an extra person to do the job, and life was very good for a while, since she turned out to be an even better fit for the job than the white guy we were already in the process of hiring.
Someone had identified this employee as a valuable asset and decided it was worth making an effort to employ her. It turned out that they were right. Race and gender had nothing to do with it.
When these sorts of things get to trial there usually has to be more evidence than this, precisely because it can be interpreted either way.