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\n\tThe White House has continued to escalate its assault on the Smithsonian Institution this week, ordering signage outside the National Museum of American History to flag what an executive order calls \u201cinaccurate information\u201d presented in its exhibits. A prominent industry group, the American Alliance of Museums, is finally hitting back.<\/p>\n
\n\tEarlier this month, the AAM released a statement condemning the Trump administration\u2018s attacks on the Smithsonian. In a scathing rebuke, the group asserted that the Smithsonian \u201creflects the highest standards of scholarship, stewardship, and public service.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe AAM\u2019s statement continues, \u201cEfforts to politicize how museums present history, art, science, culture, and the natural world\u2014and personal attacks on the museum professionals who carry out that work\u2014threaten the integrity and independence of museums across the country. If scholarship at our nation\u2019s leading museum system can become subject to political influence, no museum is beyond reach. The precedent would jeopardize the independence of 22,000 museums of every size and discipline across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOn Tuesday, the equivalent group in the UK, the Museums Association, republished the AAM\u2019s response to the White House.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt has been a tumultuous month for the Smithsonian, to say the least. On July 4, the White House released a 162-page report from the Domestic Policy Council detailing supposed \u201cideological capture\u201d at the NMAH. Several days later, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III refuted the report\u2019s findings in a terse email to staff. Then, on July 21, Anthea Hartig, director of the NMAH, was grilled in a two-hour congressional hearing over allegations that the institution has failed in its duty to preserve and present the nation\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat exactly the Trump administration\u2019s endgame is here remains unclear: Is it seeking Bunch\u2019s resignation? A wholesale rewriting of curation and materials at Smithsonian institutions? Or simply to grandstand about \u201ccultural Marxism,\u201d or whatever the conservative buzzword du jour is? Your guess is as good as ours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2276408970.jpg?w=1024″] The White House has continued to escalate its assault on the Smithsonian Institution this week, ordering signage outside the National Museum of American History to flag what an executive order calls \u201cinaccurate information\u201d presented in its exhibits. A prominent industry group, the American Alliance of Museums, is finally hitting back. Earlier this […]<\/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-2068208","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\/2068208","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=2068208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2068208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2068208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2068208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}