The Army has severed a long-standing partnership with Ashley Hall, an all-girls preparatory school in Charleston, South Carolina, as the Pentagon radically recalibrates its approach to diversity under President Donald Trump.
For the first time since 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers will not participate in Ashley Hall’s annual “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day,” an outreach event scheduled for Friday. The initiative, once a staple of the Army’s public engagement efforts, was designed to draw students into science and engineering careers, fields where the military has long struggled to fill critical roles due to steep academic requirements.
The decision comes after the Army and other services dropped recruiting efforts at a prestigious Black engineering event in Baltimore this month, despite Army Recruiting Command’s long-standing public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that programs or policies acknowledging a diverse military force or promoting women, people of minority backgrounds, and gay and lesbian troops be eliminated.
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Privately, recruiters and other Army officials are increasingly confused over what is considered a diversity event and whether any public engagement remotely associated with a gender or