Why do you find it concerning that a conference would focus on women?
I read it as a damning indictment against anti-“DEI” fanatics that they’re on the wrong side of history when they push the envelope too far in the direction of “merit-based hiring”, as if DEI was something relatively-recently concocted.
Laughably, in the days before “DEI”, “merit-based hiring” usually equated to “good old boys club”. Based on the industries in which I’ve been involved, it’s still very much “good old boys club”, despite best efforts for DEI to try to make things more merit-based.
In fact, the distinction between political appointments and those other things is critical. In politics, you appoint people to reward your various constituencies. That’s just how politics works. But jobs and universities shouldn’t work that way.
University admissions were not part of the DEI movement, they were part of the affirmative action movement. By conflating the two you’re unfairly grouping things of different types to tear them down together.
The phrasing is ambiguous.
A specific conference celebrating women in a field they have been historically underrepresented in is exactly what DEI is about.
So for whom is this a concern? I am guessing for people who are anti-DEI?
Again, the phrasing does not make it very clear.