Trump to probe Smithsonian museums for ‘woke’ ideology

By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

President Donald Trump has promised to crack down on “woke” ideas promoted in museums across the United States, including the federally funded Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C.

“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,” Trump wrote in a social media post Tuesday.

Trump promised to bring legal action, similar to what his administration has done against universities like Harvard, to rid its practices from the nation’s museums.

The Smithsonian’s fiscal year 2024 federal budget totaled $1.09 billion for its 21 museums, libraries, research centers and the national zoo in Washington, D.C.

Across 21 sites, the Smithsonian boasted between 20 to 30 million visitors each year until the COVID-19 pandemic led to a steep decline in visitors between 2020 and 2021. The number of visitors has steadily increased in recent years but still has not surpassed 18 million visitors in a single year since the pandemic.

The White House has since highlighted several examples of Smithsonian exhibits and features it deems as “anti-American.”

Some examples include:

The National Portrait Gallery featuring art that displays the act of illegally crossing the Southern borderThe American History Museum featuring LGBTQ+ exhibit material including information on identities like “third sex” and pride flags flying from the tops of museums.The National Portrait Gallery was set to feature the painting of a transgender statute of liberty before the artist withdrew it.The National Museum of the American Latino features programming with content from “A disabled plus size actress” and an “ambulatory wheelchair user” who “educates on their identity being Latinx, LGBTQ+, and disabled.”

“The Smithsonian’s embrace of woke ideology distorts history and erodes public trust,” a White House news release said. “It increasingly prioritizes exhibits that undermine our values and rewrite the American story through a lens of grievance and exclusion.”

U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, D-NC, rebuked the Trump administration’s efforts to address the ideology present in the Smithsonian’s museums.

“Museums are centers of preservation, of culture, of speaking unapologetically to the history of our country,” Adams said. “Museums were never built for comfort. They’re built for learning, understanding, and chronicling the truth of our past.”

It is unclear how the White House will go about changing the “woke ideology” it says is present in the Smithsonian’s museums. The Smithsonian declined The Center Square’s request for comment to discuss details of the Trump administration’s proposed plan.

The White House did not share specific cost details of the administration’s plans for the Smithsonian museums with The Center Square when asked for comment.