Downtown Charleston private school cancels event after executive order issued

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)– Leaders at Ashley Hall, the all-girls private school in downtown Charleston, say an upcoming event at the school that partners with federal agencies had to be cancelled, due to an executive order signed by President Trump.

Each year Ashley Hall puts on “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day”. It was scheduled for next Friday, February 21st at Ashley Hall for their students from 7th through 12th grade as a part of national engineers’ week.

The event began at Ashley Hall in 2017 to give 8th through 12th grade students a day to learn and participate in careers in the stem field.

Through the program they would build relationships with professionals, participate in community service and even have an opportunity to do internships to explore STEM career options.

“We’ve had Air Force pilots doing flight simulation with the girls, Coast Guard divers, simulation around storm surge and more understanding challenges we’ve had here in Charleston, so it’s really designed to be hands on and not only exposing them to powerful role models but to be a fun memorable experience,” said Anne Weston, the Head of School at Ashley Hall.

Ashley Hall leaders say they were recently contacted by one of the event coordinators, who told them the federal agencies could no longer participate.

School leaders say they were told this is because of the executive order that was signed by the president a few weeks ago that terminated diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI initiatives, and put a pause on outreach efforts. This led to a public outcry on social media.

“We did not anticipate that it would lead to this level of public commentary. We’ve tried to assure our students this was not our decision to cancel and that we remain committed to providing the best programing for them moving forward,” said Weston.

The school hopes to bring the program back in the future.

“It will definitely happen in the future…we will recommit to this being an annual event and we’ll recommit to partnering with federal agencies if we’re capable of doing that or with new partners,” said Weston.

Ashley Hall says they’ve heard from parents, organizations who have reached out to help continue the event in the future.

“We’ve had a tremendous response it’s been very heartwarming to see people take that interest in our students and support our mission which is what we were trying to do for the day which is expose students to stem learning,” said Weston.

On what was supposed to be ‘Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day’ the school will now host a panel of STEM speakers for students.

The school does not anticipate any other programs getting cancelled.