The military is being criticized for the decision, spearheaded by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to stop longstanding recruiting efforts at the annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards. According to Millitary.com, the service abandoned recruitment over “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.”
Under previous administrations, representatives from the Army and other branches of the military sent representatives to the event as part of efforts to recruit at the event that features students, academics, and professionals in STEM.
“It’s fucking racist,” an active duty Army general told Military.com. “For the Army now, it’s ‘Blacks need not apply’ and it breaks my heart.”
An Army recruiter also told the outlet that the annual conference is “one of the most talent-dense events we do,” and that the armed services needs to recruit people there.
The BEYA attendance ban is intended to comply with executive orders and other directives from Trump meant to reverse policies designed to further diversity across the United States. The same unit of the Army that usually goes to BEYA was recently sent to recruit at an event in Pennsylvania sponsored by the pro-Trump NRA attended by mostly white attendees. Recruiters admitted to Military.com that the NRA-affiliated event is less likely to yield the high-caliber applicants the military needs.
Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Under the Biden administration, military representatives attended BEYA for outreach and recruitment, including then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who gave the keynote speech to the conference in 2023. Austin was the first Black person to be appointed to the position.
In that speech, Austin paid tribute to NASA astronaut and aerospace engineer Guion “Guy” Bluford, the first African American to travel in space and a former colonel in the U.S. Air Force who flew combat missions in the Vietnam War. Bluford flew into space multiple times.
In a related development, Hegseth ordered that Fort Liberty in North Carolina would have its name changed back to Fort Bragg. The original Fort Bragg was named to honor failed General Braxton Bragg who fought on the side of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the Civil War.
The Trump administration claimed that the name is in honor of World War II veteran Private Roland Bragg but Trump has long railed against efforts to rename monuments and other locations honoring those who fought to preserve the institution of slavery.
The military recruitment change and the base renaming are just the latest in Trump’s actions within the military meant to roll back advances in diversity. The administration recently barred clubs for women and ethnic minorities at West Point and a training video featuring the Tuskegee Airmen was briefly pulled as the military struggled to comply with Trump’s anti-diversity initiatives.
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