Is the lack of racial and sexual diversity in the workplace a problem?

Lately, there have been a lot of discussions about the lack of diversity in the tech industry. I have been asked to fill out surveys indicating my gender and race, which I politely refuse to complete. I don't see how my sex or the color of my skin impacts my work as an engineer. Some companies promote diversity statistics on their blog and claim that they're working to improve workplace diversity. In late July, Pinterest posted a similar blog entry (https://blog.pinterest.com/en/our-plan-more-diverse-pinterest), and went even further by explicitly setting goals to hire women and people of "underrepresented ethnic backgrounds." Is this lack of diversity a problem in an industry? If so, what kinds of measures should be used to address it?