This seems to contradict itself - if you're explicitly aiming to have a certain representation of all people, unless there's some bizarre statistical anomaly, t

This seems to contradict itself - if you're explicitly aiming to have a certain representation of all people, unless there's some bizarre statistical anomaly, there will be token people. Which is wrong for both the token speakers and those who missed out. The intent is to take diversity into account - which involves effort and having it as a goal. Yes - select your speakers on merit. But unless you had diversity as one of your goals in where you put your CFPs and how you reach out to possible speakers, etc. then you won't have a diverse pool of great speakers to pick the best sessions from. Wearing my conference organising hat. If all the sessions I have available to pick my programme from are are white guys in their 20s then I've failed already.