It was not enough for U.S. President Donald Trump to have signed an executive order last March mandating Vice President JD Vance to ensure that programs at the Smithsonian, the largest museum complex in the U.S., are not “divisive” and reflect supposed “traditional values.” Now, Trump also wants to clamp down on what is done at the museum. A decision that the Trump administration communicated last August 12 to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch, in a letter that was posted on the White House website. The missive bears the signatures of three Trump aides (Lindsey Halligan, Vince Haleyr and Russell Vought) and notifies the museum of its intention to conduct a “comprehensive internal review of certain Smithsonian museums and exhibits” precisely on the basis of the executive order signed in March. “This initiative,” the letter reads, “seeks to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore trust in our shared cultural institutions.” The goal, the administration seeks to assure, “is not to interfere with the day-to-day activities of curators or staff, but rather to support a broader vision of excellence that highlights historically accurate, uplifting, and inclusive representations of America’s cultural heritage.”
The review, Trump’s three aides make known, will focus on several key areas. Control will be exercised, meanwhile, over public-facing content. How? With a “review of exhibition texts, wall didactics, websites, educational materials, and social media and digital content to assess tone, historical context, and alignment with American ideals.” Then, on the curatorial process, through “a series of interviews with curators and senior staff to better understand the selection process, exhibition approval workflows, and all the work contexts that currently drive exhibition content.” Control also over exhibition planning and uses of the collection, through an “assessment of how existing materials and collections are being used or could be used to highlight American achievements and advances, including whether the Smithsonian can make better use of certain materials by digitizing them or passing them on to other institutions.” Finally, there will be a review of narrative standards by “developing consistent curatorial guidelines that reflect the Smithsonian’s original mission.”
Initially, the review will focus on eight museums that are part of the Smithsonian: the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Each of these museums will need to appoint a liaison and provide the administration with various materials: programming for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America; exhibition plans, concept drafts, and event drafts related to “America 250”; supporting materials such as proposed artwork, descriptive panels, exhibition catalogs, event themes, and lists of invited speakers and events; content of current exhibitions; catalog and schedules of all current exhibitions, including budgets; digital files of all currently exhibited room materials, panels, and gallery labels.; complete index of upcoming exhibitions (2026-2029); proposals, projected schedules, and preliminary budgets for upcoming exhibitions over the next three years; curator and staff manuals, job descriptions, and organizational charts; documentation outlining the chain of command for approval, scheduling, and review of exhibition content; internal communications or reminders related to the selection and approval processes for exhibitions or artworks; access to the inventory of all permanent holdings; teacher guides, student resources, and supplemental educational content related to current exhibitions; URLs and descriptions of official museum websites and microsites related to exhibitions.
Museums will also be required to provide lists of active partnerships with outside collaborators, including artists, historians, nonprofit and advocacy organizations, as well as copies of grant applications and funding agreements related to past or current exhibitions, particularly those that affect content or presentation. The Trump administration also wants lists of artists exhibited in museum halls who have received a Smithsonian grant, as well as surveys with results.
Each museum is required to send a portion of the requested materials within 30 days, a period during which the administration will also begin site visits with inspections of current exhibitions to document themes, visitor experience, and visual messages. Then, within 75 days, museums will be asked to submit the remaining required documentation, including promotional materials, grant data, educational materials, and tour content. Also during this period, the administration will begin scheduling and conducting voluntary interviews with curators and senior staff. Finally, within 120 days, the letter says, “museums should begin making corrections to content where necessary, replacing divisive or ideological language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions on signs, educational wall panels, digital displays and other public-facing materials.” The goal is to finish the work in 2026.
According to Trump’s three aides, this process should be “a collaborative, forward-looking opportunity for museum staff to embrace a renewed curatorial vision rooted in the strength, breadth, and achievements of American history. By focusing on Americanism-the people, principles, and progress that define our nation-we can work together to renew the Smithsonian’s role as the world’s premier museum institution.”
Of course, criticism is already flowing in the U.S. for this encroachment of the administration into the cultural arena, which seriously threatens to undermine the scientific autonomy of the country’s largest museum complex, reduce curatorial freedom and cultural pluralism. One of the first comments came from Jonathan Lemire, an experienced political journalist with a large following in the United States, who spoke of a “very bad and very, very dangerous” slope. There is no way, he said during his MSNBC program, "that rewriting history to fit a president’s vision is good for the health of a nation or its democracy. You can be patriotic, you can love your country, next year we will celebrate the 250th anniversary, and certainly President Trump and his team are already preparing to celebrate it. Some of it is good, but to honor a nation’s history, you have to be honest about it. And cleaning it up, neutering it, whitewashing it, not being honest about it - that’s not good
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| Technical evidence of censorship: the Trump administration will monitor all Smithsonian content |
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