Comment by foldr

> My basic point was that when people attack DEI in general, they create an environment that's more hostile to a conference like this one. They may say "oh, but obviously I wasn't talking about things like that". However, words have meaning. If you attack DEI as such then you attack all instances of it – not just the ones that happen to irk you.

That's one possible response; another possible response is "I've never heard of the Grace Hopper conference, but now that I have heard of it, I was definitely talking about things like that when I attacked DEI in general, I'm glad the people running it aren't getting funding anymore".

My own position as someone who was previously aware of the Grace Hopper conference (I know women who have attended in the past) is that I don't have a problem in principle with celebrating Grace Hopper or even with people of arbitrary demographic groups, such as women, self-organizing to do a thing for themselves; but I did view it as a women-in-tech-specific conference that I would not have attended or sought to attend because I am not a woman. I wouldn't have donated my own money to it, and I'm not particularly upset if the reason they're canceling it now is because they can't find corporate sponsors. Certainly I'm not gonna change my mind about opposing DEI programs on the grounds that it affects corporate willingness to sponsor a particular women-in-tech conference.