By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-21 21:30:57 | Updated at 2026-08-09 07:58:30
2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — House Republicans grilled the leader of a Smithsonian museum on Capitol Hill Tuesday by displaying photos of its “overtly sexual” exhibits and reciting other approved content that described “politeness” and “objectivity” as being white supremacist in nature.
“Gender and sexuality are highlighted by your museum,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told National Museum of American History Director Dr. Anthea Hartig, showing off photos from exhibits behind him on a posterboard.
“Do you think these exhibits behind me are appropriate for children?” he asked.
“So I recognize some of the, um, the images from Entertainment Nation, and I think from some other sources, but let me, I think, tell you what I think is most important—” began Hartig.
Burchett butted in: “Ma’am, ma’am, I mean, you have pictures of bondage. You have some overtly sexual things up there. You have transgendered folks, I assume that’s what they are.”
“In another exhibit, a six-year-old girl asks why she doesn’t have male genitalia,” he continued. “Do you really think that content is appropriate for children? I mean, do you think little, little girls have penises? Let’s get to the basics of this. Do you think that’s appropriate?”
The Smithsonian museum director described the photos as having come from a “temporary exhibit” that later closed.
“In that exhibit, sir, with permission of the author, we shared a 13-year-old’s diary,” Hartig said, claiming, “I understand your question, sir,” when the Tennessee Republican interrupted again to press her on the content of the museum.
“No, you don’t; you’re not answering; you’re just running on, ma’am, and I appreciate your hospitality, but the reality is you’re not answering the questions,” Burchett fumed.
“You’re funded by taxpayers and the taxpayers would like to know, is that appropriate?” he asked again.
The director responded that at least some of the sexualized content of the exhibits was “not designed for children,” before emphasizing parents’ role in vetting it beforehand.
“I understand you’re not gonna answer,” Burchett shot back. “And I’m gonna run out of time.”
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) in another exchange with Hartig drew attention to “Museums as a Site for Social Action Toolkit,” or “MASS Action Toolkit,” that was used in a staff reading group between 2019 and 2023 as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative.
“Is it important to be polite?” asked Gill.
“Yes, sir,” Hartig said.
“The same MASS Action Toolkit that your organization has been promoting references politeness as a defining characteristic of white supremacy culture,” Gill responded. “Ma’am are you a white supremacist?”
“No, sir,” she replied.
“Can you help me square why your organization says that being polite is part of being a white supremacist?”
“I’m not exactly familiar with that passage of the MASS Action toolkit, which is not one that we developed,” she said.
Elsewhere, Gill also highlighted the same pamphlet’s disparaging of “objectivity” as also having vestiges of white supremacy — and demanded to know whether Mickey Mouse was “racist,” since the institution in an exhibit claimed the Disney character represented “traditions of black-faced minstrelsy.”
The House Oversight Subcommittee hearing, “Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past,” came about after the White House’s Domestic Policy Council released a report on Independence Day ripping the cultural institution for moving away from its founding principles.
The report also highlighted that some of the museum’s “material is situated in youth-facing exhibits and accompanied by sexually explicit or sexually suggestive content that many parents would find deeply inappropriate for children, who are frequent visitors and a target audience of the Museum.”
“Anthea Hartig, NMAH’s director since 2019, has explicitly stated that she sees history as a ‘prime tool of social justice and one of her roles as connecting “research and scholarship to activism and advocacy,’” the report stated.
“[T]he Museum purposely presents America as a problematic country irredeemably conceived, founded by deeply flawed men, and still operating today as an instrument of systemic racism and oppression,” it also noted.
“In the Museum’s current telling, the country is, above all, defined by white supremacy, slavery, conquest, exclusion, hierarchy, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and systemic injustice.”
The Smithsonian receives nearly $1 billion in annual funding, with the National Museum of American History making use of $28.6 million of that sum.
