In reply to Isabel.

I do wonder what the implications of the idea of “re-balancing the overall historical record” are. How many of this team will be North Americans? University graduates? How many had slave-owning ancestors? This can go on and on, and will it lead us somewhere good?

When these sorts of things are done we seem to be offered the choice of either making all these things consistent, in which case we end up in some dystopian nightmare in which everyone is cancelled because of things beyond their control…. or on the other hand if we decide we’re happy to be inconsistent then the charge of tokenism can’t be defended against. Lose-lose. I conclude that in software engineering being gender-blind, colour-blind, etc., was the right policy and should be retained.