Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump revealed his intention on Thursday to force changes to the Smithsonian Institution with an executive regulation that aims to finance programs, the “split stories” and “improper ideology”, the recent step in a broad side against culture that he considers too liberal.
Trump claimed that there had been a “concerted and widespread” effort in the past ten years to rewrite American history by replacing and adding “objective facts” by a “distorted narrative, which was more of an ideology than by the truth” that it puts the “founding principles” of the United States in a “negative light”.
The order, which he has signed behind closed doors, sets Vice President JD Vance, who works on Smithsonian’s regent board, and responsible for monitoring efforts to remove “inadmissible ideology” from all areas of the institution, including museums, the education and research centers and the National Zoo.
It marks the youngest Salvo of the Republican President against cultural pillars of society such as universities and art, which he considers to be without restrictions with conservative sensitivity. Trump recently worked as chairman of John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the aim of overhaul programming, including the annual Kennedy Center Honors Awards Show. The administration recently also forced Columbia University to make a number of political changes by threatening the Ivy League School with the loss of several hundred million dollars of federal financing.
The executive regulation also indicates the return of statues and monuments confederated figures, many of which have been decreased or replaced all over the country after the police of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was conducted by Trump and other conservatives.
The order also requires improvements by the Independence Hall in Philadelphia until July 4, 2026, just in time for the 250th anniversary of signing the declaration of independence.
Trump opened the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016 near the White House, the History of Women’s History Museum, and the American Art Museum for Criticism.
“Museums in the capital of our nation should be places where individuals learn – not an ideological indoctrination or split stories that distort our common history,” he said.
Linda St. Thomas, the head spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution, said overdue Thursday in an e -mail: “We have no comment for the time being.”
According to Trump’s command, Vance will also work with the White House household office to ensure that future funds for the Smithsonian Institution are not spent on programs that “reduce common American values, promote Americans based on races or the promotion of programs or ideologies that are compatible with federal law and the guidelines”. Trump also wants to ensure that the women’s history museum celebrates women and not “recognize men in any respect as women”.
The interior minister must also restore monuments, monuments, statues and similar properties that have been removed or changed since January 1, 2020, “maintain a wrong reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures or include another inappropriate partisan ideology”.
The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, educational and research sophisticated. It consists of 21 museums and the national zoo. Eleven museums are located on the National Mall in Washington.
The institution was founded by the congress with money by James Smithson, a British scientist, who left his estate to the United States to set up “in Washington under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an institution for increasing and spreading knowledge”.
