Open Forum

MUSEUMS AND CENSORSHIP

Sixty-one years ago, I began my museum career as a curator at what is today the National Museum of American History (NMAH). In those years, we watched the Soviet Union and Communist China dictate how their people could understand the past, filtering history through an ideological lens. I never imagined that an American administration would seek to pressure our own cultural institutions in a similar way-especially museums, whose public trust depends on evidence, scholarship, and independence.

Recent attacks on the Smithsonian and the NMAH put that trust at risk. They threaten the professional, evidence-based work through which museums help Americans understand their shared past and recognize the diversity, equity, and inclusion that have shaped our country's development. Saving America's Story, the Trump administration's latest attack on the Smithsonian-particularly the NMAH-is not a serious historical critique. It is filled with falsehoods, inflammatory rhetoric, and racist overtones that aim to discredit the very institutions charged with preserving the nation's memory.

The report's 162 pages reflect a narrow xenophobia that is profoundly out of step with the United States as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence. Ironically, the report reveals a striking lack of understanding of our history and of the national motto embodied in the Great Seal of the United States: E Pluribus Unum-"Out of many, one." That phrase is not a slogan of exclusion; it is a promise that our national story is strongest when it includes all who have helped make America.

The Smithsonian Institution and the NMAH do not serve one party or one ideology, nor are they propaganda arms of the left or right. They serve all Americans by preserving and interpreting the objects, documents, and stories that make up our national experience, guided by rigorous scholarly research. For that reason, every American-regardless of party-should be alarmed by efforts to control how we understand our past and present. We should reject any political movement that seeks to intimidate the Smithsonian Institution and its staff into silence. A free person deserves museums that tell the truth as fully and honestly as evidence allows.