Putting A Human Face On Programmers

from the they-need-a-human-face? dept

News.com has a slightly bizarre article about how it's important for people like the ACLU to find more sympathetic appearing programmers for the various freedom of speech cases they've been bringing. They may have found a poster boy in Professor Ed Felton who made news last week by getting threatened by the SDMI. What I want to know is why what a programmer looks like should matter in what they say? I understand that public perception definitely does play a part in these decisions, but since when is it illegal to do something if you have long scraggily hair and wear tennis shoes, but legal if you're clean cut in your khakis and blue button down? And, I say this being someone who actually prefers to wear khakis and a blue button down.

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