"Candidates from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply"

A person cannot be diverse. A group of people all the same as each other is not diverse, hence there is no such things as a "diverse background," unless what is meant as having grandparents from four different racial groups.

The only thing that can be diverse is a group of people from backgrounds different from one another. So you could have diverse freshman class, but not a diverse member of the freshman class.  I don't know why I have to keep explaining this to people.