By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-28 03:11:19 | Updated at 2025-03-31 02:02:27
2 days ago
President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered that “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” be removed from the Smithsonian Institution, the vast museum and research complex that is a premier exhibition space for US history and culture.
The Republican president, in an executive order, directed that Vice-President J.D. Vance undertake the action.
The order also directs the Interior Department to restore federal parks, monuments and memorials that have been “removed or changed in the last years to perpetuate a false revision of history”.
The order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” is vague about what the president views as anti-American ideology. But it suggests Trump is seeking to purge elements of what conservatives view as a revisionist history of the United States that places systemic racism at the heart of its narrative.
The order singled out the National Museum of African-American History and Culture as problematic, claiming that it tells visitors that “hard work,” “individualism” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “white culture”.
The order also asserts the American Women’s History Museum plans to celebrate male athletes taking part in women’s sports.
