I earned a PhD in a field where, at least at the time, was pretty male-dominated. I don’t know if being a woman helped me get a spot or if it was solely because of my great application, experience, passion. and letters of recommendation.
Doctoral programs in the social sciences choose their people based on a lot of factors including the focus of interest and maybe even the applicants’ “voice.” Regardless, If you do get in, you can be sure it’s because you earned it beyond your ethnicity. Legitimate programs don’t give precious spots to unqualified applicants.
Still, as others have pointed out, there are ways to make it impossible or less likely the school will know ahead of time.