It's certainly something to aspire to. But think about it this way: if someone is claiming that you are already a meritocracy, but their upper management are almost entirely white and male, what subsidiary claim does that seem to be making?
Essentially, use of the word as a description (rather than an aspiration) packages up a whole bundle of problematic claims of the form "we're not sexist, we would have more women rise to the top if only they {tried harder | were smarter | had the technical ability | ...}" (and similarly for minorities).
So by removing the rug she already told the management what she thinks of them. No wonder that love didn't really grow between them...
I also don't agree the inverse conclusion (upper management must be all male because women don't have merit) really follows. What if the women in upper management simply work elsewhere? Where there even any women who complained that they weren't in upper management at GitHub? Do they even have a better/worse hierarchy for people so that people not in upper management should feel like losers?
Essentially, use of the word as a description (rather than an aspiration) packages up a whole bundle of problematic claims of the form "we're not sexist, we would have more women rise to the top if only they {tried harder | were smarter | had the technical ability | ...}" (and similarly for minorities).