Cornell lecture to focus on 'racism' and 'sexism' in Trump era

An Ivy League university is hosting a lecture Monday on “racism” and “sexism” in the era of President Donald Trump.

The Cornell Program on Ethics and Public Life (EPL) is hosting a lecture entitled, “Racism, Sexism, and Class in Trump-Era Politics: 2016, 2018 and the Future” to analyze how Trump’s rise to political prominence “has increased the degree to which people express prejudice towards women and racial minorities.”

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Tufts University civic studies professor Brian Schaffner will deliver the lecture and argue that Trump and his presidential campaign stoked the division seen in American politics today by provoking voters concerned with issues surrounding race and gender. 

Schaffner will also analyze the midterm election results and what those could indicate for Trump and his supporters. The event is free and open to the public.

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This particular talk is the finale of a three-part lecture series hosted by the EPL entitled “Politics and Justice in the Era of Donald Trump,” in which invited speakers examine the shifting tides in U.S. politics during the Trump era. 

”We look for lectures that will enrich inquiry and mutual learning, and I think we have achieved this goal,” Dick Miller, director of the program on Ethics and Public Life, told Campus Reform in a statement Monday. “This does not mean that we endorse the views expressed in the lectures. We don’t as a program and department.”
 
”I very much hope that students who support Donald Trump will not feel alienated by today’s lecture. Inevitably, in these matters, the speaker’s sympathies emerge. However, Brian Schaffner did not, by any means, come to denounce Trump supporters, and we would not have invited him as an eloquent and vivid denouncer of Trump’s politics,” Miller continued.

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