The Army and other service branches are abandoning recruiting efforts at a prestigious Black engineering event this week, turning down access to a key pool of highly qualified potential applicants amid President Donald Trump’s purge of diversity initiatives in the military.
Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had a long-standing public partnership with the Black Engineer of the Year Awards, or BEYA, an annual conference that draws students, academics and professionals in science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
The event, which takes place in Baltimore, has historically been a key venue for the Pentagon to recruit talent, including awarding Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarships and pitching military service to rising engineers. Past BEYA events have included the Army chief of staff and the defense secretary.
“This is one of the most talent-dense events we do,” one Army recruiter told Military.com on the condition that their name not be used. “Our footprint there has always been significant. We need the talent.”
The services cited concerns that participation in the predominantly Black event could run afoul of Trump’s orders and the Pentagon’s intensifying push to erase diversity efforts in the military, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Jan. 31 ordered that Black History Month, Women’s History Month and others were officially “dead” and that the military would no longer mark them
The Navy, Air Force and Space Force are also pulling out of the event and forbidding officials from attending in an official capacity or in uniform. It was unclear Monday whether the Marines were still participating.
The U.S. military is one of the largest STEM employers in the nation, yet its critical role in driving technological innovation often goes overlooked and misunderstood by the civilian sector,” a note on BEYA’s website says. “BEYA works to bridge this gap by highlighting the vast STEM opportunities available within the armed forces and showcasing military leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”
“It’s our mission to keep the United States safe from a range of 21st-century threats,” former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a keynote address at the BEYA ceremony in 2023. “We’re determined to continue innovating to make America more secure; that means drawing on the strengths of all people.”
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