White House criticizes Smithsonian's "radical" exhibitions, including LGBTQ+ narratives
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A report from the White House criticizes the “radical” materials featured in the Smithsonian Institution’s management of the National Museum of American History, including LGBTQ+ history.
The 162-page report, titled “Saving America’s History,” by the Domestic Policy Council, was released on Independence Day and accuses the Museum of American History of seeking to promote radical societal change within its featured presentations.
Specific exhibits and resources called out in the analysis focused on racial inequalities, social change, immigration and colonization history, gender ideology, and, of course, the LGBTQ+ movement.
Displays involving drag queens were largely considered “sexually suggestive” and inappropriate for young children. While demonstrations centering on transgender people
The Council also deems presentations LGBTQ+ a way of ‘“‘privileging,’ ‘partnering with,’ and ‘spotlighting’ the people and stories of virtually every group but straight, white Americans.”
The account comes after Trump’s 2025 vow for an internal review of the “divisive narratives and improper ideology” across various Smithsonian museums.
“The Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of American History in particular, under its current leadership and current interpretive ideology, cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic,” according to the report by the council.
“As this report shows, confirmed in the words of Museum leadership, this ideological capture has moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”
Backlash of the report was almost immediate, with the Organization of American Historians publicizing its own response, effectively condemning the White House’s attacks on the museum and stating that the president has no authority over the way the country’s past is chronicled.
“In another example of executive branch overreach, the White House is seeking to coerce Smithsonian leadership to shape its presentation of U.S. history so that it serves the administration’s political agenda—part of an ongoing and multi-pronged assault by the Trump administration against accurate and evidence-based history in American public life.”
“The question this report forces us to confront is simple: who has the authority to determine how American history is told? The President, or the historians, archivists, educators, curators, and museum professionals whose training and evidence-based methods have always governed that work? The answer, as a matter of law and professional practice, has never been the former.”