White House Accuses Smithsonian of Discrimination, Threatens To Cut Federal Grants

In its latest attempt to bring the Smithsonian Institution to heel, the Trump administration is threatening to cut off discretionary grants and is accusing the organization of violating federal antidiscrimination law. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Vince Haley, assistant to the president for domestic policy, wrote a letter to the Smithsonian’s board of regents on August 28, warning that the Smithsonian may lose support from executive agencies. Congress provides the majority of the Smithsonian’s funding, more than $1 billion a year.

The letter was earlier reported on by the Washington Post.

As Burgum and Haley outline, the White House Domestic Policy Council recently issued a report, “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” after which Trump issued an executive order, “Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution,” asserting that “current leadership of both the Smithsonian Institution and the [National Museum of American History] cannot be trusted to tell America’s story with honesty and gratitude.”

The National Museum of American History, the letter says, has adopted a new “Interpretive Plan” that instructs staff to tie all topics to the “core issues of our time,” including race and identity, gender and sexuality, climate change, immigration, economic inequality, technological change, and nationalism and globalism. “To do anything less is to shirk our commitment to relevance,” it quotes the plan as saying. 

The report also accused the museum of seeking to “legitimize illegal immigration and open borders” and “present the view that biological men can be women and should be permitted to compete in women’s sports.”

The museum did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Smithsonian Institution declined to comment.

The Smithsonian “enjoys support from executive departments and agencies,” the letter continues, adding that “Those executive departments and agencies cannot in good conscience continue to support the Smithsonian under current leadership by, for example, loaning artifacts for exhibits, enabling procurement processes and making discretionary grants.”

The letter also claims that the “institutional culture may have resulted in significant violations of Federal antidiscrimination law, including creating a hostile work environment” by allocating opportunities and funding based on race, ethnicity, and other protected characteristics.

Burgum and Haley also assert, without giving examples, that the Smithsonian’s culture has “corrupted” the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). The AAM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Burgum’s office did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s request for comment on which executive agencies specifically would cut off the Smithsonian, or elaborate on how the Smithsonian has corrupted AAM. The White House, in response to a request for comment on the same issues, sent a statement by Haley that reiterated his position on the museum but did not address those questions.

In March 2025, two months after taking office in his second term, Trump issued the executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that addresses what he describes as “anti-American ideology” at the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian Institution, while heavily publicly funded, is not controlled by the government, as Congress outlined when it was established in 1846.

The administration’s interventions at the Smithsonian have continued. Most recently, the administration ordered signage outside the NMAH in July to flag what it called “inaccurate information” presented in its exhibits. The museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, was grilled in two congressional hearings, also in July, with questions like, “Are you America first? Do you love America?”

Notably, the AAM released a statement in July condemning the administration’s attacks on the Smithsonian. Another leading industry group, the International Council of Museums (ICOM), likewise released a statement last month pledging its “unwavering support” for the Smithsonian.