On July 4, the White House posted a lengthy report condemning the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, accusing it of promoting “extreme ideological activism” while denigrating the nation’s founders and its founding.
Historians have started to reply with failing grades of their own.
The Organization of American Historians, the nation’s largest group of scholars of U.S. history, blasted the report in a statement on Monday, accusing the administration of presenting a partisan ideological attack in the guise of historical critique.
“The National Museum of American History interprets America’s history through its vast collection,” it said. “This report’s objective is to punish it for doing that in a way that makes U.S. history accessible to and reflective of all Americans. The report is only the latest chapter in a broader, systematic campaign that now targets an institution that was never meant to answer to any single administration.”
The group accused the administration of ignoring decades of scholarship and trying to “erase the conflict, struggle and diversity — the complexity — that have always defined the American experience.”
“Make no mistake: The report represents an attempt to turn back the clock to a time when U.S. history was taught as the history of white Christian men who conquered a continent, U.S. military leaders who rarely lost a battle and U.S. presidents who were single-handedly responsible for national greatness, all under the cover of ‘anti-D.E.I.’ and ‘anti-woke’ crusading,” it said.
The White House report presents a wide array of charges, including that the museum promotes transgender issues and engages in “pro-illegal immigrant activism.” But at its core is a complaint that it fails to tell an “inspiring and unifying” national story that focuses on the heroism of the founders and acknowledges Christianity’s “constructive role” in “shaping the nation and its freedoms.”
In a separate email to The New York Times, the president of the Organization of American Historians, Marc Stein, questioned the symbolic timing of the report.
“Released on July 4, 2026, the 250th birthday of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the report is a declaration of independence from history,” he said.
Mr. Stein, a history professor at San Francisco State and the author of a recent history of the 1976 Bicentennial, defended the museum’s director, Anthea M. Hartig, a scholar of architectural history and cultural heritage who took over that role in 2019.
The report “mischaracterizes and misrepresents the words of Anthea Hartig, who has consistently worked to educate and inform visitors to the museum with innovative exhibits and inspirational programs,” he said. (Ms. Hartig is a past president of the Organization of American Historians.)
Some historians have questioned the accuracy of some of the report’s claims, including that the museum largely ignores the American Revolution and figures like George Washington.
Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association, which has more than 10,000 members, noted in an email that the museum includes some “extraordinary” Revolutionary-era objects, like the newly restored gunboat Philadelphia, which it is highlighting for the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Ms. Weicksel questioned some of the report’s criticisms of specific wall labels — for example, one about the history of U.S. education that refers to portraits of George Washington that have hung in many classrooms to promote patriotism. The report faults the label for not including biographical information about Washington and why he is important.
“Studies of museum visitation have shown that labels should be presented no higher than an eighth-grade reading level and that most visitors will read no more than a brief label,” she said. “If every label that mentions Washington or Lincoln needs to recount a rote interpretation of their importance to the country, visitors will never learn anything new.”
