FairerScience friend and advisor Walter Secada sent me his review of a new book on equity in mathematics, Improving access to mathematics. The book sounds interesting but what really interested me was the last paragraph of his review.

Walter reminds us that "that the individuals who engaged in equity research [in the 60s-80s] were, in their own ways and in their own times, as politically astute and as ground breaking as breaking as the authors of these chapters. Equity researchers from that era used the dominant research theories and tools from their times to create the spaces that made possible this book." He goes on to say "The authors of Improving access to mathematics also use the dominant theories and tools of today to create another set of spaces; I end by wondering what use future scholars will make of these new affordances that will render this work, in its own turn, hopelessly out of date."

Walter's words have application far beyond a specific book, or even field. Being out of date means that people were able to learn from and build on the work. That should be acknowledged not attacked,