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\n\t\u201cDr. Hartig, are you America first? Do you love America?\u201d So asked Representative Tim Burchett (Republican of Tennessee) of Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History (NMAH), during a two-hour congressional hearing Tuesday over allegations that the institution has failed in its duty to preserve and present the nation\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe hearing will likely carve out its own place in American history\u2014not merely for the spectacle of the proceedings, which included questions like \u201cWhen did you know you were a woman?\u201d and \u201cWas Mickey Mouse racist?\u201d but for the ideological conflict at its core, one that prompted repeated comparisons to McCarthyism and the era\u2019s House Committee on Un-American Activities: Who draws the line between history and propaganda? How does changing what a nation remembers change the nation itself?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe witness lineup itself reflected the stakes of that debate: Hartig, who has led the NMAH since 2019; David Blight, a Yale historian and leading scholar of American historical memory; Matthew Spalding of conservative Christian college Hillsdale; and Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Trump-aligned Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n
\n\tHartig, meanwhile, occupied the hottest seat in the House, as the Smithsonian has emerged under President Trump\u2019s second administration as a proxy battleground in his broader campaign to reshape US cultural institutions. On July 4, the White House issued a 162-page report titled Saving America\u2019s Story<\/em>, accusing the Smithsonian of \u201cextreme political activism,\u201d and calling for sweeping changes to its programming and leadership. The report alleges that the museum \u201cpurposely presents America as a problematic country\u2026defined by white supremacy, slavery, conquest, exclusion, hierarchy, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and systemic injustice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe Smithsonian takes the concerns raised in the White House Domestic Policy Council\u2019s report seriously, and as we continue to fact-check the report, we unwaveringly attest that it does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum,\u201d Hartig said.<\/p>\n \n\tRepresentative Melanie Stansbury (Democrat of New Mexico) opened the hearing with a direct rebuke of the report: \u201cCalling out individual leaders [of the Smithsonian] by name\u2014that is not policy. That is a political witch hunt.\u201d She then announced the introduction of the Smithsonian Integrity and Historical Independence Act, which she said \u201cbars any federal official, including those in the White House, from trying to interfere in the independent institutions of this country and the historic interpretation of our nation\u2019s history, and it reasserts our congressional authority over this independent agency.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe allegations in Saving America\u2019s Story<\/em> stem from a federal review of 19 Smithsonian museums initiated by the White House in August. The review examined texts and exhibitions for what the administration characterized as \u201canti-American ideology,\u201d while future reviews are expected to scrutinize grants awarded to artists and museum collection displays. Historians and cultural organizations nationwide immediately decried the effort as government overreach, and the Smithsonian\u2019s pushing back against the administration\u2019s findings has drawn threats to its federal funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tExhibitions and scholarship addressing gender and sexual fluidity and queer American history\u2014among the report\u2019s major points of contention\u2014became a flashpoint for conservative committee members during the hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRepresentative Nancy Mace (Republican of South Carolina), in particular, repeatedly challenged Hartig over material in the museum\u2019s \u201cGirlhood, It\u2019s Complicated\u201d exhibition. \u201cCan you tell me? Look me in the eye and tell me that that belongs in an exhibit for kids?\u201d Mace asked, referring to a diary excerpt written by a 13-year-old about her apparent experience with body dysmorphia. The questioning then turned pointedly personal when Mace pressed Hartig on a display stating that \u201cgender isn\u2019t always revealed at birth,\u201d asking the director, \u201cWhen was your gender revealed?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHartig, meanwhile, defended the museum\u2019s approach as \u201crigorous\u201d and \u201cfact-based,\u201d saying it aimed to tell \u201cthe full and rich story of America\u201d through \u201chistorical evidence, competing perspectives\u201d and \u201cenduring debates.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSome conservative committee members also questioned the Smithsonian\u2019s role in shaping America\u2019s image abroad.<\/p>\n \n\tRepresentative David Rouzer (Republican of North Carolina) asked Hartig whether it would be better if \u201cthe rest of the world saw us as what we truly are,\u201d a country that \u201cled the world and inspired them to eliminate slavery, to eliminate all of the genocides that happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHartig, who had previously pushed back against suggestions that the museum neglects figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and American inventors, pointed to several exhibits that showcase American achievements.\u00a0While Rouzer called for the Smithsonian to be \u201ctrumpeting the great and wonderful things that this country has done,\u201d Blight offered a different vision of what it means to tell the American story. \u201cTriumphalist history cannot tolerate nuance, ambiguity, complexity, but they are lifeblood for real historians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tGonzalez, for his part, called for a total shakeup at the Smithsonian, arguing that reform under its current leadership would not suffice. \u201cYou do need to clean house at the Smithsonian. You have to replace the leadership,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tRepresentative Kweisi Mfume (Democrat of Maryland), who spoke of growing up under segregation and drinking from a water fountain marked \u201ccolored,\u201d closed the hearing with a personal reflection, his voice rising as static crackled through the microphone: \u201cIf you erase it, we will replace it. It\u2019s that damn simple.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/smithsonian-museum-leader-us-congressional-hearing-1234793035\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286438756.jpg?w=1024″] \u201cDr. Hartig, are you America first? Do you love America?\u201d So asked Representative Tim Burchett (Republican of Tennessee) of Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History (NMAH), during a two-hour congressional hearing Tuesday over allegations that the institution has failed in its duty to preserve and present the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2054955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2054955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}