If it seems fishy, it might be

A committee that makes an effort to have gender, geographic, racial, age, and experiential diversity might want to avoid having two people of the same race, gender, workplace and (roughly) experience on the ballot. That they came from a workplace with influential people in the field makes me think it's problematic: what will happen if both of them win?
The nominating committee should have chosen one person from this workplace, and left the other for another year.

shutting down the debate

I've been following a promising new blog recently. The newest blog post was an interesting reflection on how thinking carefully about race made the blogger change opinions about a new book. That's fine, but it's also fine to have a differing opinion. I've read several thoughtful pieces on both sides of the debate.
So to have it framed as "if you don't agree, you're just not thinking carefully about race", or (as a commenter suggested) that if you don't agree with the blogger's take on the book you don't care about people of other races, makes me angry. It boils down to a difference of opinion about a text, not a litmus test about racism.