The use of the term Proof of Concept goes back to at least 1984: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_concept#Usage_history

I'm less clear on when PoC came into vogue, but I think it was likely in the 90s.

Edit: Actually, reading more carefully, you can find "proof of concept" at least as far back as 1967.

Different communities, different dialects. I suppose this journal doesn't come from the community that would read "PoC" as "People of Color".

I think Proof of Concept predates your genre of terminology

The oldest sense of a term is not necessarily the predominant one; nobody is going to read "moron" or "imbecile" and think of clinical terms today.

> nobody

Well, almost nobody, because that's what I think of when people use these terms to degrade others.

While I presume you mean to say that you think that people who go around calling others morons are the real morons, you've written it in a way that suggests you think such a thing is linked to clinical mental retardation.

I don't get these people that would block the title of a publication because one possible definition might be construed as rascist.

If anything it describes a certain hegemony by these disaffected groups as they slowly claw more and more of language as their own...