The White House published a list of Smithsonian exhibits, programming and artwork it considered objectionable on Thursday, one week after announcing that eight of the institution’s museums must submit their current wall text and future exhibition plans for a comprehensive review.
The list borrows heavily from a recent article in The Federalist that objected to portrayals at several museums. It argued that the Museum of American History promoted homosexuality by hanging a pride flag; overemphasized Benjamin Franklin’s relationship to slavery in its programming; and promoted open borders by depicting migrants watching fireworks “through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border wall.”
Other grievances were previously enumerated in an executive order that President Trump authorized in March, which criticized the National Museum of African American History and Culture for a 2020 worksheet that describes aspects of “whiteness” as “hard work,” “individualism” and “the nuclear family.” The worksheet was part of an online educational portal called Talking About Race; once it drew criticism, Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, had it removed.
The White House list also featured complaints that were not part of the Federalist article or the president’s executive order. Those include a stop-motion animation at the National Portrait Gallery about Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a government leader during the coronavirus pandemic, and a series at the African American museum that it says “featured content from hardcore woke activist Ibram X. Kendi.”
The Smithsonian Institution and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“This is an unprecedented pressure campaign and the granularity here is shocking,” said Samuel J. Redman, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has written extensively on the Smithsonian’s history. “This list, even from a cursory look, is cherry-picking various examples from an enormous and diverse museum.”
The unsigned list from the White House was the latest in the president’s effort to overhaul the Smithsonian, which oversees 21 museums, libraries, research centers and the National Zoo. Last week, the Trump administration sent Mr. Bunch a letter saying that eight of its museums had a 120-day deadline to replace whatever the administration considers “divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions.”
Mr. Trump also said this week that the Smithsonian was “out of control” and focused too much on “how bad slavery was.”
The Smithsonian, which has long operated as an independent institution outside the purview of the executive branch, gets 62 percent of its more than $1 billion annual budget from congressional appropriation, federal grants and government contracts.
This year, Mr. Trump said that Vice President JD Vance, who is a member of the Smithsonian’s board, would work with Congress to prohibit expenditures on exhibitions or programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race or promote ideologies inconsistent with federal law.” In recent months, Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to the president, has taken credit for leading efforts to overhaul the Smithsonian.
Some of the White House’s efforts to change the capital’s cultural scene have been successful. Mr. Trump purged the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts of Biden appointees and installed himself as its chairman. The director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, resigned in June after the president said he had fired her, calling her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.”
The list that the White House published on Thursday also included material that has been displayed in the National Museum of African Art and the American Art Museum. It is titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian.”
Zachary Small is a Times reporter writing about the art world’s relationship to money, politics and technology.
The post White House Lists Smithsonian Exhibits It Finds Objectionable appeared first on New York Times.
