Reactions of Law Enforcement to LGBTQ Diversity Training

• Author: Audrey Harkness,Tania Israel,Jay N. Bettergarcia,Joshua A. Goodman,Todd Raymond Avellar,Kevin Delucio
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21281
• Date: 01 June 2017
• Published date: 01 June 2017

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 28, no. 2, Summer 2017 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21281 197

QUALITATIVE STUDY

Reactions of Law Enforcement

to LGBTQ Diversity Training

Tania Israel , Jay N. Bettergarcia , Kevin Delucio , Todd

Raymond Avellar , Audrey Harkness , Joshua A. Goodman

Knowledge about the ways in which employees respond to workplace

diversity training can help in the preparation and delivery of the training.

Few studies have looked at responses toward with lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender, and queer ( LGBTQ ) diversity training, in general, or with

law enforcement, in particular. The present study examined reactions,

specifically resistance and receptiveness, to an LGBTQ diversity training

for approximately 120 law enforcement officers. Twenty subthemes about

resistance were categorized into four overarching themes: perceptions of

law enforcement, beliefs regarding LGBTQ community, defending law

enforcement practices, and nonverbal forms of resistance. Seventeen

subthemes about receptiveness were organized into five main themes:

requesting elaboration from trainers, how law enforcement can support

LGBTQ people, awareness and motivation to address LGBTQ community

needs, appreciation for the training, and helping the trainers or training

succeed. The results indicate that both resistance and receptiveness were

present among participants. Further, some of the receptiveness and

resistance is similar to what is found in the literature, while some of these

reactions were unique to LGBTQ diversity training and working with law

enforcement.

Key Words: diversity training , law enforcement , LGBTQ , receptiveness ,

resistance

Training to increase awareness and skills related to diversity is proliferating

throughout educational institutions, businesses, and community settings

(Alhejji, Garavan, Carbery, O ’ Brien, & McGuire, 2016 ; Kulik & Roberson,

2008 ; Roberson, Kulik, & Pepper, 2001 ; Roberson, Kulik, & Tan, 2013 ).

Diversity training is often thought to be one facet of diversity management

programs and is typically conceptualized in terms of addressing diversity

198 Israel, Bettergarcia, Delucio, Avellar, Harkness, Goodman

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

among employees in order to raise awareness of differing values, enhance

workplace relationships, improve employee performance, and improve busi-

ness (Holladay & Quiñones, 2005 ; Kochan et al., 2003 ; Pendry, Driscoll,

& Field, 2007 ; Wiethoff, 2004 ). Although less represented in the human

resources literature, diversity training can also focus on helping employees or

trainees better serve a diverse public, as is true for mental health professionals,

educators, and law enforcement.

Literature on diversity training for law enforcement has focused primarily

on outcomes of intercultural communication training (e.g., Boulware-Brown,

2004 ; Cornett-DeVito & McGlone, 2000 ; Rowe & Garland, 2003 ) and rec-

ommendations for training content and format (e.g., Coderoni, 2002 ). There

are good reasons to extend diversity training to prepare law enforcement to

work effectively with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)

communities, including barriers to LGBTQ people reporting crimes (Kuehnle

& Sullivan, 2003 ; National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 2011 ),

biased treatment of LGBTQ people by law enforcement (Bernstein & Kostelac,

2002 ; Wolff & Cokely, 2007 ), and evidence of hostility toward sexual minor-

ity law enforcement (Collins & Rocco, 2015 ; Jones & Williams, 2015 ; Lyons,

DeValve, & Garner, 2008 ). There are, however, only a few published stud-

ies that investigate training for law enforcement on LGBTQ issues, and these

focus on evaluation of training outcomes (Israel, Harkness, Delucio, Ledbetter,

& Avellar, 2014 ) or themes that emerged during law enforcement training

(Israel et al., 2016 ; Miles-Johnson, 2016 ).

Similar to other studies of workplace diversity training, Israel and col-

leagues ( 2014 ) focused on outcomes related to employee understanding

of diversity (Alhejji et al., 2016 ), self-efficacy (Combs & Luthans, 2007 ),

and perceived value of the training (Holladay & Quiñones, 2005 ). Such

approaches to studying diversity training provide valuable information

about the overall impact of the training, although they do not offer insight

into employee reactions that emerge in the process of workplace diversity

training. In contrast, Miles-Johnson ’ s ( 2016 ) study of police resistance to

training on transgender issues is more in line with literature that describes

students’ reactions to diversity training in higher education settings, which

also focus primarily on resistance to diversity training (Thomas & Plaut,

2008 ). Literature on workplace diversity training and diversity education

in classroom settings have developed as separate entities, but may be use-

ful in informing one another (King, Gulick, & Avery, 2010 ). Specifically,

our study will apply frameworks from higher education that describe stu-

dents’ reactions to diversity training to investigate employees’ responses to

workplace LGBTQ diversity training. Human resource literature regarding

diversity tends to focus on the organizational culture, diversity manage-

ment, and workforce diversity (Thomas & Plaut, 2008 ), with less empha-

sis on the process of conducting diversity training and the individual and

group responses to such trainings. The current study focuses specifically