Since football players can run track without their scholarship being funded by track, then it would seem that this would only be an addition of 5 male or 6 female scholarships to xc, without taking away any from track or preventing track scholarship recipients from competing in xc.
However, if this were intended and had the purpose of expanding xc, then why would it be justified by reference to increasing diversity, since the statistics say that xc is 24% non-white, vs. 42% in track?
That, and the reference to financial aid limits, imply that it is intended to restrict xc to the use of 5/6 scholarship athletes. But then the 12.6/18 could only compete in track, meaning that 400/800 runners couldn't run xc for the aerobic benefits and no distance runners on the track team could compete in xc, and conversely, it seems, unless the 5/6 were counted there. So, track scholarships would surely go only to sprinters and field athletes, because who ever heard of keeping distance runners from competing in xc and who would want to go to such a program?
So, the proposal does not make sense unless construed as a way of adding scholarships to xc so that fully funded programs can compete in both xc and track by having 5/6 full scholarships to use in xc (enough to score a team with distance runners) AND having 12/6/18 to score a full team of sprinters, field athletes, and distance runners in track. And in that case it does not serve diversity interests. It adds distance scholarships, though, which is a good thing for distance runners AS LONG AS the programs decide that they want to fund xc. I am quite sure, however, that this interpretation of the rule change would hurt xc, because it would provide an excuse not to have it at all, since it would now cost 5/6 scholarships instead of none (or 12.6/18 spread out over potentially three sports) and the scholarship balance would no longer be significantly in favor of women, in contrast to track. They want that balance in favor of women because of football and Title IX proportionality constraints. There is a reason xc ranks so high in total participation and programs: there are no xc only scholarships.