You’re probably not alone thinking this because of all the noise about affirmative action. Academia is quite different behind the curtain than for students. Sure, they like hiring women because it helps improve their statistics, but the educational background, including institutions where the candidate did their undergrad and PhD is much more important.
technically there is one possibility: someone got into better schools due to AA, that benefits all things thereafter including possibly the case here. For those who lost the first chance due to AA, the lost is not over yet, unfortunately.
Legacy admits counted as much at many places that were segregated in living memory (so a more limited chain of legacies for formerly discriminated races).
Growing universities with colleges that want endowments, faculty whose families are deeply entrenched in related institutions or culture, and generally prestigious and well-connected people are all necessary and make for perfectly valid candidates.
Academics isn't all academics. You need people who can grow and sustain development, attract desirable talent, work at the state and local level, and pull in students. People have to manage the internal administrative duties and external involvement of each school. Plus, some people make excellent teachers and leaders but awful researchers, and vice versa. Others are mediocre but consistent, don't have higher prospects, and take on administrative burdens. There's no real "ideal professor" any more than there's any ideal human.
Just to be clear, donations help getting into a specific institution to study. Which does give a leg up to get a position later (most often in a different institution), but that’s a second-order effect. It does not directly help getting hired.
What has this got to do with the topic of donations? Here the reason is completely different. Also, some university having a policy against it does not prove that it’s a widespread problem, it’s merely an indication that some problems happened that were high profile enough to make the institution react.
