What are you talking about? He fought against special treatment BEFORE getting reprisals. He was punished after treating people equally, not before.
The settlement was about the reprisals he faced for sticking to his guns and NOT becoming corrupt. You should be mad at the pig in charge who pushed for the demotion, not the guy doing the right thing.
White the other person saying 80 years is a bit much, it has been a constant for at least 40 years now.
Personal computing and software isn’t new.
Edit: To clarify, 1984 (40 years ago) saw Superbowl ads for the Apple Macintosh and the advent of the CD-ROM.