Statement on LambdaConf 2016

The organizers of LambdaConf, now in its third year, describe it as “one of the largest, most diverse gatherings of functional programmers in the world”. This year, it selected Curtis Yarvin as a speaker—a man known as a founder and advocate of an ideological movement that promotes racist bigotry, and as an apologist for slavery.

Yarvin's selection as a speaker says to marginalized people that their humanity is considered merely another matter for debate. LambdaConf cannot live up to its goal of being a “friendly community of like-minded souls” when it does not protect current and potential members of that community who are vulnerable to those who would deny their humanity.

We believe that functional programming should warmly welcome those who have been systemically excluded from participating in programming communities. We strongly object to LambdaConf's actions, which are a step backwards as we work together to share functional programming with a wide audience.

April 8th, 2016

Signatories as of 4/8/2016:

(Note: Organizational affiliations are listed only for identification, and do not indicate organizational endorsement).

Additional Signatories:

Some signers of this statement have written elsewhere on this topic as well.

Media coverage of the controversy:

If you would like to sign this statement, go to github.com/statement-on-lambdaconf, click edit, add your name/info/date in the section "Additional Signatories", and create a pull request. If you want to sign it but don't want to deal with github, pull requests, or HTML, send an email to dbp@dbpmail.net with the same info.