> This seems to have happened in history; ideas proposed by lower status folks were less accepted until higher status folks reintroduced them

> For example, Richard Stallman’s software concept wasn’t accepted until rebranded as “open source”.

Richard Stallman graduated from Harvard and worked at MIT. If it was necessary to rebrand his ideas, it's certainly not because he wasn't elite enough.

> Semmelweis’s hand-washing was rejected until Pasteur and Lister’s reintroduction

Semmelweis’s results were already treated as obvious in britain during his lifetime, and Lister worked in that tradition.