Nice blaming of the victim, buddy. It seems that you are coming from a very loaded position here. It's one thing to say "you must not discriminate because of r

Nice blaming of the victim, buddy. It seems that you are coming from a very loaded position here. It's one thing to say "you must not discriminate because of race or sex". That's racism and sexism and we all find it abhorrent (or at least, I would hope so from HN's readership). But is the fact that they had a non-diverse lineup of speakers proof that they explicitly excluded non-whites and non-males from participating? From what we know, that's not really the case. Ending up with a lineup of white male speakers, at a Ruby conference in England in the year 2012, is not at all an unlikely outcome for a selection process that ignores race and gender. I think you understand this. But you're saying something else. You're saying that they should have made it a goal to have a diverse panel, by specifically taking into account race and gender to override other factors and get the diversity makeup you want. Don't immediately think of merit, either: it could have taken something such as offering a larger subsidy to get that one female speaker they wanted who had initially declined, or to fly in someone from Japan. Whatever it took, they should have done it, because the race and gender makeup has to be what you decide. That's not being non-racist and non-sexist. That's positive discrimination, or affirmative action. It's a somewhat controversial policy that might have its place to rectify situations of long-ingrained oppression and prejudice, but it's certainly not the required standard for being non-racist and non-sexist in all situations. Certainly not at a conference for Ruby programmers in England in 2012! Mind you, explicitly aiming for a diverse panel is still a fine goal for a conference organizer. But that's not to say that it should be the primary goal of all tech conferences in the world, and that any organizers who fail to put it at the top of their agenda should be publicly tarred and feathered as racists and have their conference boycotted and cancelled. As well-meaning as I'm sure all people involved are, some parts of the tech community have reached a level of paroxistic politicization that will be detrimental to the community itself. We're going to lose conferences, and we're going to lose people who feel uncomfortable with this forceful imposition of ideological attitudes.