Bile-heavy Smithsonian’s problems go from bad to worse

BS BULLETIN

Legal scholar Cully Stimson says Smithsonian leadership has turned American history into “bile” and wants museum director Anthea Hartig fired.
Hartig has described history as a “prime tool of social justice” and spoken of reframing America’s traditional “celebratory narrative.”
Trump has now ordered federal action aimed at “restoring trust” in the Smithsonian.

Maybe America’s National Museum of American History should start with a radical new concept: American history. And perhaps not a taxpayer-supported exercise in teaching Americans how problematic America is.

That’s the argument Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former federal prosecutor, is making as the battle over the Smithsonian escalates following congressional hearings and a blistering White House investigation.

(Fox News Digital)
Stimson doesn’t merely want a few exhibit cards rewritten.

He wants a housecleaning.

“That’s all it is. It’s bile. It needs to be ripped out, root and branch, and redone.”

National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig should have been fired immediately after her July congressional testimony, according to Stimson.

He accused the museum of embracing an “oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative” in which America’s achievements become secondary to race, gender, sexuality, inequality and historical grievance.

But what makes this controversy considerably more interesting than a conservative complaining about “woke museums” is that Hartig’s own words have become Exhibit A against her.

A White House investigation released on July 4 documented a series of statements from Hartig and other Smithsonian materials that Republicans argue reveal an institution moving from historical scholarship into political activism.

Among the most explosive is Hartig’s description of history as:

“a prime tool of social justice.”

She has also spoken of connecting scholarship to “activism and advocacy” and said the museum works to “reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of U.S. history for visitors.”

And there’s this extraordinary autobiographical description cited by the White House report:

“the cushions of whiteness and the pillows of the bourgeoisie.”

Those aren’t phrases invented by Fox News or Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. They’re among Hartig’s own statements documented in the White House report.

That’s why this fight isn’t really about whether slavery should be discussed in an American history museum.

Of course it should.

Neither is it about hiding segregation, Jim Crow, the treatment of Native Americans, Japanese internment or any other dark chapter of American history.

A museum that concealed those things wouldn’t be teaching American history. It would be teaching mythology.

The real argument is over the framework through which the whole American story is presented. Is America fundamentally a remarkable experiment in liberty that has repeatedly struggled to live up to its own founding principles? Or is the nation’s history fundamentally a story of power, oppression, privilege and marginalized groups struggling against the system?

That distinction is now at the center of an extraordinary political fight over America’s most famous museum complex.

Hartig appeared before the House Oversight Committee on July 21 for a hearing carrying the none-too-subtle title:

“Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past.”

Smithsonian history museum director stumbles when asked basic questions about biological sex and gender.

During a contentious House hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace repeatedly pressed Director Anthea Hartig on whether men can become women, what defines a woman, and how many genders… pic.twitter.com/IPab2Y9AEs

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 21, 2026

She vigorously defended the museum.

“Our work is governed by the Smithsonian standards of scholarship, accuracy, independence and nonpartisanship.”

Hartig continued:

“The museum does not take sides in America’s political debates.”

That didn’t exactly satisfy Republicans.

Committee members pointed to Smithsonian programming involving race, gender, sexuality, economic inequality and “decolonization,” arguing that the museum’s own materials contradicted Hartig’s insistence that it remained above contemporary political battles.

Subcommittee Chairman Tim Burchett pointed specifically to a museum “Center for Restorative Justice” and a “decolonization working group” aimed at examining historical harms connected to what its materials described as “ongoing systemic oppression.”

Burchett also highlighted Hartig’s “prime tool of social justice” remark and accused the institution of abandoning its traditional mission. Stimson was even less charitable about Hartig’s appearance.

“Her little writing the question down and her smugness was really evincing of what she really thinks of the American people and congressional oversight.”

He described the museum’s current approach as “flagellation and self-loathing.”

“That is not how you celebrate your country.”

The controversy has now moved well beyond congressional hearings and cable-news arguments.

President Trump issued an executive order on July 24 declaring it official administration policy to “restore trust in the Smithsonian Institution.”

The order cites the White House investigation and accuses Smithsonian leadership of failing to present American history as a “shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated.”

Trump ordered federal agencies to identify available legal and financial mechanisms to pressure the institution to address the administration’s concerns. And he did something even more unusual. The president directed the National Park Service to install temporary signage on federal walkways leading to the National Museum of American History warning visitors about what the administration calls the museum’s “ideological capture.”

That’s how far this fight has gone.

The United States government is preparing to put warning signs outside the United States government’s premier American history museum telling visitors that the American history museum has a problem telling American history.

You almost couldn’t invent it.

There is, of course, another side to this argument. The Smithsonian maintains that presenting uncomfortable chapters of American history isn’t the same thing as condemning America.

Its own 250th-anniversary exhibition, “In Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness,” spans all three floors of the National Museum of American History and uses 250 objects to examine the ideals contained in the Declaration of Independence across 250 years.

Hartig herself said the anniversary was important enough that “it takes an entire museum to do it justice.”

And the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents has publicly emphasized that the institution must remain a place of rigorous scholarship “free from political or partisan influence.”

Interestingly, however, the board also acknowledged the institution “can and must do more” to reinforce those values and instructed Smithsonian leadership to establish expectations for museum directors, make necessary changes and report back on possible personnel action.

So even the Smithsonian’s governing board isn’t simply saying: Nothing to see here. Move along.

MY QUICK TAKE:

There is a very simple way to tell American history without lying about either side of it.

Tell the whole story.

Tell children that Thomas Jefferson wrote perhaps the most revolutionary words in the history of government: “All men are created equal.” Then tell them Jefferson owned slaves.

Tell them America permitted the evil of slavery. Then tell them hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a Civil War that ended it.

Teach them about Jim Crow. Then teach them about Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, the Reconstruction Amendments, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act.

Teach America’s failures. And then — here’s the part that seems increasingly difficult for our cultural institutions — teach America’s achievements too.

The American story isn’t remarkable because Americans never sinned. It’s remarkable because this country wrote ideals into its founding documents that generations of Americans could use to challenge the country to become better.

That’s an astonishing story. And you don’t have to “whitewash” one damned thing to tell it.

But when the director of the National Museum of American History describes history as a “prime tool of social justice,” I have a problem. A historian’s job is not to use history as a tool for today’s political objective. A historian’s job is to tell us what happened. Give us the evidence. Give us the context.

Give us the heroes and villains — and the complicated human beings who were sometimes both. Then trust Americans to think for themselves.

And this business about “reframing the traditional celebratory narrative” bothers me for another reason.

Americans should be able to walk into their National Museum of American History and feel something besides guilt.

A child should be able to stand before the Star-Spangled Banner and feel awe.

A family should be able to learn about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Douglass, Edison, the Wright brothers, Jackie Robinson and the Americans who landed on the moon without being handed an ideological decoder ring explaining which modern identity category they’re supposed to apply first.

That’s not “whitewashing.” That’s history.

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