Do companies really hire on just talent alone?

In chapter 6 we read about different cultures and ethnicities. We now have laws that say a company must not discriminate against anyone for their race, gender, religion and so on. Also, it looks better if a company has a wide variety of cultures. However, a company should not choose to hire a woman, or an african american just because they have to. I heard a story yesterday that made me think about the ethical approach to hiring people. A friend of mine was in a flight training school and Southwest Airlines were looking for possible candidates for a job. As soon as they found out that their was an african american woman, they automaticaly chose to recruit her because they knew it would look good on their company. However, the woman was not even a good pilot. She was a little below average in the class and made a lot of mistakes. After working for Southwest for 10 years, she still is not a pilot. And usually you get promoted to a pilot after 5 years. That does not seem like a fair way to hire people. Their was a lot of other talented people who wanted that job, but didn't even get a chance. Everyone should have an equal oppurtunity to obtain employment. That is wrong that a company would hire someone specifically for their race. Why do you think their is still prejudice today and how does it affect our employment opportunities?

In response to tom

What kind of preventative measures would you suggest a company take to keep employees in line with their code of ethics?

Ethics can be a hard topic for a manager to cover with their employees. Every employee could have a different opinion on what is right and what is wrong. A manager needs to be flexible when handling the situation of ethics because you don't want to offend anyone by saying that they are wrong in thinking a certain way. I believe that a manager should emphasize the fact that the ethical rules are in favor of the company. That way the employees should not get directly mad at the manager himself if they have different opinions. If you place the blame on the company rather than a person then the employees can't really be mad at anyone in particular.
I think that their should definatly be a code of ethics for every employee to have and be required to read. Then their should be test to see who is actually taking it seriously. Also, I think that role playing is a good idea so that employees can experience situations first hand. If a manager finds out that an employee has been unethical their should be a well known punishment. This should help prevent employees from acting unethical if they know they can't get away with it. What companies do you think have the best ethical behavior based on your own experience?