There's no way to spin this that doesn't make it sound like assholes being gatekeepers.
https://proofsandprompts.com/2026/09/10/open-letter-about-th...
>Participation in an event so closely associated with Anthropic and OpenAI could plausibly negatively impact the future reputations of participants.
Given how much power advisors etc have over students in academia, interpret it as you wish.