Oppose Executive Order 14416 and Defend Smithsonian Independence

I am writing to express my profound disdain for President Trump’s manufactured controversy concerning the Smithsonian Institution. Executive Order 14416 does not represent a good-faith effort to improve historical accuracy. The administration commissioned a politically framed report, adopted that report’s conclusions as official truth, declared Smithsonian professionals untrustworthy, and then directed the Department of the Interior to install government counter-signage outside the National Museum of American History. This is a circular exercise in which the President manufactures an accusation and then uses executive power to display that accusation at the museum’s doorstep. Museums should never be immune from public criticism, scholarly disagreement, or legitimate congressional oversight. But criticism is not the same as coercion. Historical interpretation should be evaluated through evidence, professional scholarship, peer review, public dialogue, and transparent curatorial procedures—not through presidential decrees demanding a sufficiently flattering account of the nation. As an educator, I reject the premise that patriotism requires sanitizing history. Teaching slavery, racial exclusion, dispossession, discrimination, political conflict, and failures of democratic government does not degrade the United States. Honest examination of those subjects demonstrates respect for students and for the democratic capacity of the American people. A nation confident in its principles does not need to protect itself from its own historical record. I ask you to: 1 Publicly oppose Executive Order 14416 and its attempt to impose partisan historical judgments on the Smithsonian. 2 Support appropriations language prohibiting federal funds from being used to implement Sections 2 and 3 of the order or to install partisan counter-signage criticizing Smithsonian exhibitions without approval from the Board of Regents through a documented scholarly process. 3 Demand disclosure of the proposed signs, their locations, costs, contracts, evidentiary sources, review procedures, and communications among the White House, Interior Department, National Park Service, OMB, GSA, and Smithsonian. 4 Defend the statutory governance authority of the Smithsonian Board of Regents and the professional independence of its historians, educators, conservators, researchers, and curators. 5 Ensure that Smithsonian employees are protected against retaliation for defending historical accuracy or professional museum standards. 6 Request a formal legal analysis of the administration’s authority to use federal property, funding conditions, and executive agencies to pressure an independent federal trust instrumentality into ideological conformity. Please tell me whether you oppose this order and what specific legislative or oversight action you will take. A generalized statement supporting museums is no longer sufficient. Congress possesses appropriations, oversight, subpoena, and legislative powers capable of imposing meaningful limits. The Smithsonian exists for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge,” not for the increase and diffusion of presidential self-congratulation. I urge you to defend it accordingly.