It wouldn't be unprecedented. Symphonies regularly use "blind auditions," with the performer behind a screen, to prevent bias (typically against women). Blind auditions significantly improved women's chances of being selected, as related by Malcolm Gladwell in 'Blink'. Here's the original study he references:

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~hf14/teaching/povertydisc/readi...

That would be excellent wherever it's feasible. The way Gladwell tells it (so take it with a grain of salt), when symphony orchestras started conducting their auditions with a screen in place so they couldn't see the person playing the instrument, the fraction of female musicians in top orchestras shot way up.

However, in cases where the quality of in-person interaction is a major part of what you're trying to assess — like for a team programming environment — it's going to be pretty hard to do anything comparable.

How important is personal interaction to most programming jobs, really?

I'd go so far as to say that it might be slightly more important than the ability to write code, depending on the company, the project, etc. Being able to effectively discuss requirements and technical tradeoffs with non-technical stakeholders is extremely valuable.

Obviously some level of programming expertise is required, but once you've crossed that minimum threshold, personal communication becomes a larger and larger share of an employees value.

Personal interaction is critical to any job unless your boss is a robot.

But what about language pattern, vocabulary and dialects? What about university names or degrees if it makes companies favor those over others that are self taught. One can put this into an absurd chain of arguments...

A telephone interview will accomplish the same thing, and reduces travel expenses to boot.

In fact telephone, or skype, interviews for the first round is actually becoming standard in many fields.

No, that's not next.

Turing Test interviews.

IRC interviews

Even that is not 100% watertight: http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php

I tried my own comments from this page. The majority gives me around 70-85% male (I'm a feminine female). But adding one comment which was talking "childcare" and such gave me "only" a weak male (saying it might indicate European). It's so stereotypical. Interesting also how it divides people into males, females and Europeans (the "weak" versions).

Chinese room interviews.

Where do I sign up?