This is far too breathless. From what I was able to read and understand, there was a concern that the keynote placement could be seen as approving of a particu

This is far too breathless. From what I was able to read and understand, there was a concern that the keynote placement could be seen as approving of a particular technical direction. This concern itself isn't super crazy to me; this is why you will see many other event program committees avoid placing technical talks advocating for a particular project direction in keynote slots. Obviously the way that an individual (apparently) chose to go about addressing this concern was procedurally crappy, and overall a much better way here would have been to work with the talk author to make sure the talk or the event would frame things right after the keynote had already been decided, and given that there was no vote to change that decision. But that doesn't mean the work is killed, or that the entire leadership group is bad, or that the organization can't learn from this now very public mistake and adopt better policies.