IN THE WAKE OF THE RECENT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, while some voters feel hopeful that America can be made "great again," others fear that this signals a furious backlash against decades of increasing cultural diversity and progress in recognizing the rights of racial, sexual, and ethnic minorities. White nationalists have been emboldened, and it is possible that the efforts already underway to roll back voting rights in many states can now proceed without substantial opposition from the federal government. The status of millions of unauthorized immigrants, who had reason to be hopeful as recently as 2013, is now highly precarious. And hate speech has cropped up in alarming ways throughout the nation and at the University of Pennsylvania itself.

As demographic trends thwart the ultimate dream of white nationalism - the U.S. is still on track, after all, to becoming "majority minority" someday - the ultimate result may be enduring, deep, and paralyzing national polarization.

Penn DCC is convening an interdisciplinary panel of noted University of Pennsylvania scholars to explore other possible scenarios. Perhaps advocates of an egalitarian multicultural society can devise policies to help accommodate and assist those white Americans made anxious and angry by their perceived cultural and economic eclipse. Meanwhile, if the new president's policies fail to improve the economic and cultural standing of those who voted for him, there may be a new way forward in 2020.