Academia filters a lot less for conformity than it used to. Indeed, in some very elite places, any attempt to enforce the old-fashioned style of conformity on s

Academia filters a lot less for conformity than it used to. Indeed, in some very elite places, any attempt to enforce the old-fashioned style of conformity on students would be seen as Problematic. On minority students, doubly so. This does not need to be a bad thing - how many nose rings someone has and what color their hair is, is not a good proxy for whether they are any good at a particular skill like coding, for example.