President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order targeting funding for programs at the Smithsonian Institution that contain what he characterizes as “divisive, race-centered ideology” in his latest broadside against a liberalism that has critiqued Western culture and values.
The president said in the order that there has been a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past decade to rewrite American history by replacing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” He said this narrative has cast the “founding principles” of the U.S. in a “negative light.”
Noclip via Wikimedia Commons
“The Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” Mr. Trump said in the order. “This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” He pointed to a sculpture exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum representing that “[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.”
The order tasks Vice President JD Vance, who serves on the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, with overseeing efforts to “remove improper ideology” from all areas of the institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
It marks Mr. Trump’s latest salvo against cultural pillars of society, such as universities and art, that he sees as out of step with conservative sensibilities. He recently had himself installed as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the aim of overhauling programming, including the annual Kennedy Center Honors awards show. The administration also recently forced Columbia University to make a series of policy changes by threatening the Ivy League school with the loss of several hundred million dollars in federal funding.
The executive order also hints at the return of statues and monuments of Confederate figures, many of which were taken down or replaced around the country after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is detested by Trump and other conservatives.
The president directed the secretary of the interior to determine whether, since Jan. 1, 2020, “public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.”
The order also calls for improvements to Independence Hall in Philadelphia by July 4, 2026, in time for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Mr. Trump singled out the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016 near the White House, the Women’s History Museum, which is in development, and the American Art Museum for criticism.
“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” he said in the order.
Linda St. Thomas, the Smithsonian Institution’s chief spokesperson, said in an email late Thursday, “We have no comment for now.”
Under the order, Vance is to work with the White House budget office to make sure future funding for the Smithsonian Institution isn’t spent on programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy.” The president also wants to ensure that the women’s history museum celebrates women and not “recognize men as women in any respect.”
The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex. It consists of 21 museums and the National Zoo. Eleven museums are located along the National Mall in Washington.
The institution was established by Congress with money from James Smithson, a British scientist who left his estate to the United States to found “at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
