Salon articles are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Once again though, this appears to be an issue of equal representation. The classic dilemma is that

Salon articles are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Once again though, this appears to be an issue of equal representation. The classic dilemma is that if you have no speakers belonging to X group, you'll appear to be exclusive. Yet if you hire a few speakers of X group just for the sake of having them, then that becomes tokenism and is hardly beneficial in the long term. Treating the symptoms is only a band-aid. The condition will exacerbate, unless the root cause (which is a sociological one, in many cases) is examined and treated. One must also evaluate whether it is worth doing so.