A Trump presidency and the prospect for equality and diversity

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0282
• Published date: 14 February 2018
• Pages: 2-13
• Date: 14 February 2018
• Author: Eddy S. Ng,Christina L. Stamper
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

Guest editorial

A Trump presidency and the prospect for equality and diversity

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States

until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research,

among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim

population (Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump, December 7, 2015).

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you,

they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us.

They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists […] And some, I assume, are good

people (Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump, June 2016).

I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything […] grab them by

the p***y (Donald J. Trump, 2005).

During the 2016 US Presidential election, Republican Candidate (now President) Donald J.

Trump made headlines around the world for vitriolic and inflammatory remarks against

women, immigrants, Muslims, and other minority groups. Trump promised to build a wall

along the Mexican border, ban Muslims from entering the USA, tighten a bortion laws,

repeal the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), and restrict press freedom (Bulman, 2016).

His vision to “Make America Great Again”appealed to many white, working class

Americans who were angry at or resentful of immigrants, a lack of opportunities for

themselves, ideological-based terrorist attacks, and political correctness (Boag, 2016). Many

lesser-educated white voters also felt abandoned by progressives (Vance, 2016). Indeed, a

recent study has shown that sexism and racism predicted support for Trump much more

than economic dissatisfaction (Schnaffer et al., 2017).

The election of a candidate that so blatantly used an “us vs them”approach to

campaigning has generated fear and uncertainty among a majority of people in the USA,

but for women, racial, cultural, and religious minorities, as well as LGBTs, there is a

serious worry that their hard-fought rights and social respect will disintegrate ( Filipovic,

2016). For example, an increase in the number of hate crimes across the USA followed

Trump’svictory(Yanet al., 2016), events in which the perpetrators clearly refer to the

support offered by Trump and his rhetoric. Trump’s election to the White House also

seems to have energized the “alt-right”movement, which frequently uses unverified and

completely fake n ews and “post-truths”in social media outlets, sometimes highlighting

racial, gender, religious progressives and cultural differences in negative ways. We agree

with Tourish (2017) and Ng’s (2017) recognition that as academics, we have a

responsibility to respond in a timely fashion about current events that affect our world.

To that end, we have developed this special issue to reflect on the election of President

Trump, as well as how his campaign and presidency relates to equality, diversity, and

inclusion efforts in the USA and elsewhere.

How did we get here?

According to conventional wisdom, timing is everything. Donald Trump grew up in a

privileged home as the son of a wealthy real estate magnate in New York; he went to work

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 1, 2018

pp. 2-13

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0282

The first author gratefully acknowledges support from the FC Manning Chair in Economics and

Business at the Dalhousie University.

2

EDI

37,1