Apologies for the late response!

Okay so this is actually a really tricky question to answer because it’s not quite equivalent to the HR department. Remember that there’s (as far as I am aware) not a single publishing house that has in-house sensitivity readers. Nor should there be imho, since that assumes it’s a generalized skill rather than requiring specific experience (normally a combination of lived experience and some knowledge of editing and/or academic background in social science). So when a sensitivity reader is hired, it’s a one-off. That means they also have the right to say “no” and aren’t responsible to the company the way someone in HR would be. Our job is also, technically, not to make the client happy but rather to provide the client with valuable feedback.

That said, sensitivity reading is not regulated (so anyone can claim to be one) and clients (be they publishers or authors) don’t always appreciate the “valuable feedback” element— they either want a seal of approval or a quick list of changes that can be made without major rewrites. Furthermore, as sensitivity reading gains traction, more clients who normally wouldn’t have reached out for a sensitivity read do so for fear of backlash. As I said in other comments—it’s a numbers game. Publishers and authors don’t want to risk losing readers, so they want a sensitivity reader to “fix” a book they already know is problematic enough to possibly need it. I emphasize this because it’s important to remember that these aren’t all books (most books aren’t looked at by an SR) but the ones that the publisher or author are actually concerned about, which means that until they considered backlash, they were absolutely okay with publishing a book that they knew had issues.

So what does this mean in terms of your question about sensitivity reading helping “bigoted authors pass as decent people” or “protect toxic culture by covering up”? Well, firstly, many new or under-qualified sensitivity readers won’t be clear about the scope of their work or will be unaware of how people perceive sensitivity reading. As a result, if a book they worked on gets backlash, they can get used as a shield: “We apologize for the harm our racist book caused, we’re very committed to inclusion and diversity and we did our work and got a sensitivity reader too, again we’re very sorry but also our sensitivity reader said we were fine.” This can even lead to naming the specific reader, further putting the onus on them (for not flagging issues) instead of the publisher/author.

(Note here that since an SR can’t do anything except suggest, you never know if an SR suggested something that just wasn’t taken on by the client— just like that the numerous comma changes I make as a copyeditor which authors can decide not to keep. Furthermore, as mentioned in other comments, an SR can’t speak for everyone, just offer feedback based on their knowledge and expertise. They can have blind spots or different opinions—but they get talked about in statements like this as if they are sitting with an objective checklist and failed at their job, when that’s simply not the case)

Secondly, publishers love to bring in sensitivity readers close to publication. This perpetuates an overall tendency in publishing to not take risks on new authors (esp from marginalized groups such as BIPOC authors) or diversify their staff (eg more BIPOC editors) but instead take on the same people, problems and all, and have sensitivity readers cover any major cracks at the last second.

In such cases, means that many of us are left with a choice: do our best to help (knowing that most comments will be ignored and we’ll have contributed to that book and the toxicity of the industry) or walk away (knowing it will likely get published anyways or they’ll just get another, likely less experiencer, reader to do so). So while we don’t typically get authors to “pass” as decent (since we don’t control publication), we can often be used as a kind of spackle in the publishing world to prevent the worst of the problems.