Ever since the Trump administration announced last month that it would review the Smithsonian’s exhibitions and seek changes to programming it found objectionable, historians and curators have been wondering how the historically independent institution would respond.
The Smithsonian offered the first indication on Wednesday afternoon when Lonnie G. Bunch III, the Smithsonian’s secretary, sent a letter to the staff indicating that the institution had agreed to set up a team to review turning over materials to the White House, as requested, but to do so as an autonomous institution.
“I take my responsibility to steward the institution on behalf of the American people very seriously,” the letter to staff said, adding, “Our independence is paramount.”
In a letter to Mr. Bunch last month, the administration told the Smithsonian to submit information about programming at eight of its 21 museums within a 75-day deadline, and that the White House would then direct possible changes in content.
While complimenting Mr. Trump’s “admiration and regard for the Smithsonian,” Mr. Bunch told the staff that his response to the White House, sent in a letter on Tuesday, had reiterated the institution’s intention to rigorously review its content for inappropriate partisanship. But he said it would be the Smithsonian, not the executive branch, that would direct the effort.
“Our own review of content to ensure our programming is nonpartisan and factual is ongoing, and it is consistent with our authority over our programming and content,” Mr. Bunch wrote in his letter to the staff.
At the same time, Mr. Bunch said he planned to share information with the White House to alleviate its concerns.
“I am assembling a small internal team to advise me and the senior team about what we can provide and on what timeline,” Mr. Bunch said, adding that the Smithsonian also planned to brief the White House about its internal review.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Bunch’s letter, which was not released by the Smithsonian. But Mr. Bunch discussed the substance of what he had written to the Trump administration in his letter to the staff, which was obtained by The New York Times. The letter was approved by the three-person executive committee of the Board of Regents, the Smithsonian’s governing body. It was not voted on by the full board, which includes Republicans, among them Vice President JD Vance. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. also sits on the board as chancellor.
The debate over who controls programming at the Smithsonian had intensified on Aug. 12 when White House officials announced in a public letter to Mr. Bunch that it would begin a comprehensive look at current and planned exhibitions, wall text and social media to assess “tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals.”
The White House had said in its letter that the purpose of its review was to replace “divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions.” The Smithsonian was given 120 days to “begin implementing content corrections” requested by the administration.
Mr. Bunch met with the executive committee of the Board of Regents to discuss the White House plan and then deliberated for three weeks before responding. In the interim, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Bunch to lunch at the White House, a meeting that Mr. Bunch and an administration official described as productive and cordial.
At the crux of the issue is not simply a matter of what content the institution should display but also who holds the power to make those decisions. The Smithsonian has long been viewed as an autonomous cultural institution, reliant on federal money for much of its $1 billion budget but governed as a federal trust, not by the executive branch.
The 17-member panel of regents, in bylaws outlined by lawmakers, also includes six members of Congress, split along party lines, and nine private citizens.
The White House and the Smithsonian have been on something of a collision course since Mr. Trump re-entered the White House in January. Tensions began building in March when Mr. Trump released an executive order that demanded reforms to “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”
When he tried to fire the director of the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian released a statement declaring its independence and asserting its authority over the institution’s personnel. (The director, Kim Sajet, resigned afterward and will become the director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.)
At that time, the board also adopted a resolution that called for its constituent organizations — including several libraries and research centers and the National Zoo — to review their content for partisanship or bias. Some in the Smithsonian leadership had hoped this internal review would show the White House that it was operating in good faith.
But on Aug. 19, Mr. Trump posted on social media that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”
Scholars have criticized the White House review as an effort to introduce political ideology into Smithsonian content in ways that undermine the institution’s autonomy and its standing as a nonpartisan presenter of American history and scientific fact. Critics of the Smithsonian have joined Mr. Trump in arguing that partisanship had already become part of exhibits that they viewed as focusing too much on race, identity and injustice.
According to the institution’s governing documents, the legal authority of the president to delve directly into Smithsonian content remains questionable. The documents outline a governing structure that says the Smithsonian, created by Congress as a trust in 1846, is to be administered by the regents and the secretary they appoint.
Mr. Trump did not focus on Washington’s cultural organizations in his first term, but since January he has pressured them to adjust to his worldview. This year at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he took over as chairman, purged the board of Biden appointees and appointed one of his allies as the organization’s president.
The Smithsonian has tried to demonstrate both respect for Mr. Trump’s stated concerns as well as a commitment to historical accuracy and institutional integrity.
In July, the National Museum of American History took down a temporary addition to an exhibition about the American presidency that described Mr. Trump’s two impeachments. A placard about the material was quickly restored, but the description of the impeachments was shortened and changed.
Robin Pogrebin, who has been a reporter for The Times for 30 years, covers arts and culture.
Graham Bowley is an investigative reporter covering the world of culture for The Times.
The post Smithsonian Responds to Trump’s Demand for a Review of Its Exhibits appeared first on New York Times.
