President Donald Trump ’s announcement of the firing of National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet(here for previous article) has opened an institutional rift that calls into question the relationship between the White House and one of America’s most important cultural institutions. Four days after the announcement, the Smithsonian Institution, of which the National Portrait Gallery is a part, has yet to make any official comment on the matter, nor has it confirmed that it accepts the president’s authority over the removal of a museum director from a top post.
At an emergency meeting Monday, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Griffith Bunch III and the institution’s board of trustees discussed how to respond to the presidential communication. The firing of Kim Sajet, who has led the museum for years, was announced via social media by Trump himself, who called her “a very partisan person and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position,” in reference to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI, precisely) programs. According to Trump, such positions would be “totally inappropriate” for someone in a leadership role at a national museum.
The White House provided the New York Times with a list of reasons it said prompted the decision. The list includes Sajet’s involvement as a coauthor of the volume The Obama Portraits, the posting on social media of images with Democratic political figures such as Hillary Clinton and Barack and Michelle Obama, and an appearance by her at a reception hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris. Some of these activities were part of his institutional duties, but the administration also highlighted campaign donations to Democratic Party figures, including Clinton and current President Joe Biden, totaling $3,982.40.
The case has opened a sensitive front for the Smithsonian. Although the institution receives about two-thirds of its funding from the federal government, it is not part of the executive branch, nor is it configured as a government agency. It is governed by a 17-member board, partly appointed by Congress, partly chosen by the board itself and approved by a resolution signed by the president. Members include, by right, the vice president and the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Under this structure, the power of the president of the United States to intervene directly in the appointment or dismissal of museum directors is legally uncertain. The Smithsonian’s official website calls it a public trust, with its own internal governance and a secretary who serves as chief executive officer. The president’s role, therefore, appears more limited than the announcement of Sajet’s dismissal suggests. Still, the White House has not made clear how it interprets its authority with respect to the Smithsonian’s top leadership, nor has it responded to inquiries on the matter. Trump has already lobbied the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he secured the chairmanship of the board and the appointment of his own ally as interim president. Now, in a new executive order, he has instructed Vice President JD Vance to examine the Smithsonian in conjunction with Congress. In the order, the president denounces a “revisionist movement” that he says intends to rewrite American history in negative terms, undermining the nation’s founding principles.
“President Trump does not have the authority to fire Smithsonian Institution employees, including the director of the National Portrait Gallery,” Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, and Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democratic member of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
In an interview with the New York Times in 2022, Sajet had said that for centuries portraits had been the preserve of the white, male elite, and thus contributed to a distorted view of American history. Under his leadership, the National Portrait Gallery has promoted exhibitions devoted to hitherto marginalized figures and expanded the inclusion of contemporary artists committed to social issues such as immigration and racial inequality. One of the items cited by the White House as evidence of the director’s alleged political bias concerns a caption that appeared next to a photograph of President Trump inside the museum. The text, about an image that is not the official presidential portrait, which is still not on display, reads " Impeached twice on charges of abuse of power and inciting insurrection after supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials." On this point, too, neither Sajet nor the museum board made any statement.
After the presidential announcement, Rebecca Kasemeyer, director of public engagement at the National Portrait Gallery, sent an email to the commissioners asking them not to make any statements to the press pending clarification from the Smithsonian. Sajet herself requested to meet with the museum’s board on Tuesday through its president. “Kim is talking to Central Smithsonian and we are waiting for guidance,” Kasemeyer wrote in an email sent to The New York Times. “We will certainly keep everyone updated as we learn more.”
“The president is right that Sajet is biased,” said James Panero, executive editor of New Criterion, a conservative art magazine. “He has only shown contempt for the National Portrait Gallery collection while committing half of his acquisition budget to so-called diversity initiatives. There has been nothing different in the results, with politicized exhibitions like ’UnSeen’ depicting the symbolic destruction of historical portraits in the permanent collection.”
“Kim is a great colleague, committed, proactive and collaborative,” says Thomas Patrick Campbell, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “She has been courageous and thoughtful in expanding the N.P.G.’s mandate to really challenge what it means to be an American and who should be represented in the N.P.G. She should be receiving awards for her work, not this vindictive treatment.”
The situation also raised broader questions about the role of national museum directors and their independence from political influence. Dean Sobel, professor of museum studies at the University of Denver, emphasized that directors should not be judged on their political orientation, but on their ability to make the museum reflect the public it serves. In his view, Sajet was doing “a good job.” The case brings to mind an earlier episode: during Trump’s first term, his administration had already focused attention on the National Gallery of Art, with which the National Portrait Gallery is often confused. There, DEI initiatives were suspended to comply with an executive order banning diversity programs in federally funded organizations.
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| Smithsonian stalled after Donald Trump's announcement of Kim Sajet's firing |
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