But I live in Canada! Why the former Trump administration’s order banning diversity training matters here too-Part 1: Introduction

Recently, the former Trump administration in the United States issued an executive order declaring that federal training could no longer “promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating” (para. 15). Thankfully, this order was rescinded by the new Biden administration in January 2021. However, while the order was in place, it meant that any federally-funded workforce (including Uniformed Services and contractors, and potentially psychology training programs) could no longer promote or provide training that “is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country, that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans” (para. 4). As this was yet one more pronouncement from an administration that was happy to implement numerous racist and xenophobic policies, it may have gotten lost in the day-to-day stream of disheartening 2020 news. However, we want to draw attention to the ideas behind this order and talk about why it matters for psychology departments in Canada. In the next two parts of this blog, we will explore why these type of ideas are relevant to Canadian psychology training programs (Part 2), and debunk some of the arguments that underlie this type of thinking (Part 3).

Thanks to Adam Murry, Aisha Taylor (https://jonesinclusive.com/), Keith Yeates, Anna MacKinnon, Cara MacInnis and Joshua Bourdage for their feedback on this blog.

Disclaimer: The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Calgary nor do they reflect official University of Calgary policy.