Cultural policies

The identity crisis of American museums: are they political spaces or neutral spaces?

The social clash between groups with different values, religions and practices resulted in executive orders targeting federally funded museums

by Giuditta Giardini

12 December 2025

L’edificio principale dello Smithsonian American Art Museum condiviso con la National Portrait Gallery

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Executive order
Cuts and redundancies
Reports and surveys
Private non-profit museums: neutrality and invisibility

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

In the United States there is a real culture war going on that, perhaps, we are talking too little about in Europe. It is a social conflict between groups with different values, religions and practices, which has resulted in a series of executive orders and other acts targeting federally funded museums, first and foremost the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

It is a retaliatory strategy. But why? In essence, museums have been put on the stand and convicted without even being able to defend themselves for using - or even endorsing - language that is considered 'woke', or deemed as such by the White House.

The Executive Order

To counter this ideology, deemed progressive by Washington, on March 27, 2025, the US President issued an Executive Order, entitled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which states: "Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread attempt to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. Under this historical revision, our Nation's unparalleled legacy of promoting freedom, individual rights, and human welfare is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed." Trump devoted an entire section of the order to the need to 'save' these institutions from a 'divisive, race-centric ideology'.

Among museums, the most impressive is certainly the Smithsonian Institute complex in Washington, DC. This is the oldest museum complex in the United States, established in 1846 as a public trust by an act of Congress, which also created the governance body: the Board of Regents. A number of well-known institutions belong to this complex (e.g., the National Museum of American History to the National Museum of Natural History, theNational 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). According to the White House, the museums of the Smithsonian complex held overly progressive attitudes, expressed through their website language and exhibition programming, which are funded, for the most part (62% of the annual budget), by the currently conservative majority government. The Smithsonian has thus been accused of not being an 'inclusive' space for some citizens, such as Republicans, who do not feel represented by its content and policies.

heavy accusations, launched just as the institution is preparing to celebrate (in 2026) its 250th anniversary. After the executive order, a 'Letter to the Smithsonian' opened the dances of internal audits and reviews of the museum complex. Museums will have to provide a wide range of materials and documents to initiate an internal review of their exhibitions and curatorial processes. These include: plans and materials related to 250th anniversary programming, catalogues and content of current exhibitions, digital files of panels and captions, proposals and budgets for future exhibitions, internal guidelines, governance documentation, permanent collection inventories, educational materials, information on digital presence, external partnerships and funding documentation. They will also need to designate a primary contact person and ensure full access to the required materials, including online content, internal communications and visitor experience evaluations.

Operationally, the museums in the complex must adhere to a strict timeline: they have been given 30 days to provide key materials, engage in dialogue with reviewers, and host site visits; 75 days to submit all remaining documentation, participate in interviews, and finalise updated plans for 'America 250'; and 120 days to begin correcting content deemed 'divisive' or 'ideological' and replacing it with descriptions 'deemed unifying and historically accurate'. The process will conclude with a final report scheduled for early 2026, which will include evaluations and recommendations for future exhibition strategies.

La facciata neoclassica del Museo Nazionale di Storia Naturale, vista dall’Agrifina Circle nel Rizal Park

Cuts and redundancies

The employees of the institutes in the complex are not doing well. They do not yet know what future awaits them given the repercussions of these policies, such as funding cuts. In the best case scenario, employees will suffer salary cuts, and in the worst case net redundancies. Both scenarios appear bleak, however.

While this is happening in other institutions, the White House has tried to indirectly influence museum leadership deemed dangerous because of 'progressive' choices, One thinks, for example, of Trump's attempted dismissal, announced on his Truth Social platform, of Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, DC., on 30 May. In the post, Trump referred to Sajet as "a partisan person" and "a big supporter of DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion]". This 'firing', without the president actually having the powers to fire Saet, although creating some embarrassment, nevertheless had the effect of getting the NPG director, now head of the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin, to resign.

Reports and Surveys

According to Lisa Sasaki, Deputy Under Secretary for Special Projects at the Smithsonian Institution, who spoke at the ICOM General Conference held in Dubai in November 2025, the problem may lie in the fact that trust in museums seems to be based on the perception that social issues are intertwined with politics and therefore perceived as 'sectarian'. In past years, museums have tried to approach the demands of young people, African Americans and the LGBTQIA+ community, who felt underrepresented by institutions. The inclusion of these perspectives, as recent developments have shown, has been perceived as intrusive by a more conservative section of the public.

According to Sasaki, neutrality does not equate to invisibility; often, when dealing with contemporary challenges, it is important to include all audiences and perspectives, leaving none behind. What is also crucial in modern museology is individual autonomy, which allows the viewer to decide which view to make their own. Therefore, the inclusion of a perspective does not in itself legitimise a political idea.

Those who believe that the inclusion of inclusive languages or underrepresented groups is a political act take a position that ends up distorting even polling data. In fact, according to data reported by the American Association of Museums in 2021, 48% of US citizens think museums should be neutral. The same percentage believes that museums are not neutral, believing that they have "opinions" and "visions", while 15% believe that museums do indeed play politics. However, one should first agree on what it really means to "do politics" in a museum space.

According to Andrew McIntyre and Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, an institution like the Smithsonian, in order to maintain authority, should retain the trust of the public, which seems to demand neutrality and loyalty to the institution's mission - but, again, the idea of neutrality is subject to the bias mentioned above. On the other hand, however, Trump's 'visible hand' does not please everyone. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 66% of Americans - whose taxes keep the Smithsonian's doors open - do not think Trump should control museums; with 86% of Democrats opposed to the administration taking control of cultural institutions.

Private non-profit museums: neutrality and invisibility

Many private non-profit museums, especially smaller ones or those rooted in communities, depend - at least in part - on federal grants or contracts - through agencies such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), or other federal or state funding linked to such agencies -, the implementation of DEI-friendly policies could result in the freezing or cancellation of such funds, affecting financial stability. Even museums that are not directly dependent on federal funding are therefore under pressure (legal, political, in the context of public funding) to change the way narratives are presented, especially with regard to sensitive topics (race, colonialism, slavery, identity, systemic injustice)

Therefore, many private museums, in order to avoid reputational or financial risks, are practising self-censorship - removing or toning down exhibitions or programmes that would previously have focused on racial justice, structural inequality or other 'divisive' topics. This happens especially on content that can be accessed online. Self-censorship was implemented to also avoid further repercussions such as the possible taxation (around 25%) of private bequests and donations to the institutions' endowments. As a consequence, private non-profit museums are also victims of a reduction of their curatorial freedom and a chilling effect on critical content or under-represented narratives.