"Someone said something someone else didn't like. And another someone else defended their right to say it..."
Weeelllll, not quite. The article is glossing over a few key points and getting away with it because it does link to the whole story. Unsurprising, as a good old "SJW" story is excellent clickbait.
First and foremost, there wasn't only one issue at question. Rod has something of a history of being inflammatory, and has regularly been accused of abusing his own powers to shut down debate he doesn't like. That was the crux of this issue.
Additionally there were some fairly detailed byelaw-based arguments about whether or not Rod was even entitled to be in the role he's in. The NodeJs Foundation is pay-to-play so there's some rules in place to balance paid-for access versus actually valuable access.
And *then* we come to the article, which must be put in context of extended flame wars with nodeJS community members, including image capturing and posting otherwise-private messages, inviting others to pile in with personal attacks.
All round a pretty messy, unprofessional business for everyone involved. Rod for being as abrasive as he is, and the Node project for refusing to follow their own rules (whether or not you agree with those rules).
As for this article, glossing over the actually very serious issues about how open source projects should be governed, how you balance professionalism vs inclusivity and how you widen access without diluting excellence in favour of ranting about the SJWs is poor form.