DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and inclusion, yet mandates a specific amount of worker to be balanced on ethnicity, race, etc whilst ignoring demographics, population amounts of each demographic, disregards merit of each worker, and demands you hire "because they are xyz"
The rest of what you said I agree with but this part is a made up fantasy and I'd support suing any company who does it it's against the law.
Instead most Republicans just use DEI to mean the n word or woman or gay lol.
For example let's say there are three people applying for a job that are all very close in qualifications (let's give it a score of 92 94 96 of 100 for the three of them) and one of them is a black woman and is the 94 score. There are times it would be more beneficial for you company in some cases to take the second best on merit if they also happen to cover some blindspots or weaknesses that you wouldn't consider without their POV.
Another example might be as simple as seeing much more potential for growth in one candidate might make it worth taking even the 92 since they are qualified and have a higher ceiling of potential.
Merit alone is not the best metric is all and there's a reason so many companies tried to copy the early ones who grew rapidly due to diversity and it didn't require the government to push them towards it it was just that they noticed it increased the companies potential greatly.
I like to think of it more like buckets of people that are qualified there's always multiple options that have the ability to do the job no matter what I'm hiring for l, but I need someone who can do the job and bring valuable perspective to my overall team.
Useful DEI doesn't even have to be race or sex it can simply mean hiring someone from the deep south small town for my NYC startup or an older person for my team of all 20 somethings.