Historians Resist Trump Administration's Smithsonian Censorship Efforts

Historians and scholars are resisting efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the Smithsonian museum system through a program of patriotic education. The initiative seeks to remove what the administration characterizes as divisive narratives and improper ideology from public memory sites.

Following the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's removal of references to Donald Trump's two impeachments and his role in the January 6 Capitol riot, historian James Millward initiated a practice called guerrilla teaching. Millward distributed printouts to museum visitors to correct the historical record, an action that led to a confrontation with armed guards and the temporary closure of the gallery.

In response to these administrative changes, Millward co-founded Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian to document censorship across the museum system. Social theorist Henry Giroux characterized the administration's actions as an attempt to discipline public memory and turn the Smithsonian into an apparatus of ideological containment.