The Atlantic Magazine reports that the Trump Administration conditions “nearly $190 million for the Smithsonian on the institution’s compliance with Trump’s March 2025 executive order accusing it of spreading ‘divisive narratives.'” The requirement is embedded in a legally binding footnote that other news sources missed. The footnote says: “To the extent permitted by law, amounts apportioned shall be available for obligation in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253 (March 27, 2025), ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.'” The Atlantic reporter Kelsey Ables says that “it is more than simply a threat: Apportionment footnotes are enforceable under the Antideficiency Act, the violation of which can carry criminal penalties. Such footnotes are one of several tactics that the Trump administration has used to try to supplant Congress’s spending power. In this case, the footnote suggests that the fight over the Smithsonian’s purpose goes much deeper than Trump’s most visible attacks.”
Defenders of the Smithsonian say that once Congress passes its spending package, the president cannot withhold the allocated funding. David Blight wrote an op-ed on this for The New York Times:
“The order’s repeated invocation of the Smithsonian Institution echoes now-familiar right-wing goals outlined in Project 2025 and elsewhere: ending the alleged “woke” agendas on race and gender, creating “parents’ rights” and school choices and promoting history aligned with founders’ “values.”
…The order is nothing less than a declaration of political war on the historians’ profession, our training and integrity, as well as on the freedom — in the form of curious minds — of anyone who seeks to understand our country by visiting museums or historic sites.”
In another case in which the Trump administration used footnotes to condition Education Department money, a judge overturned the footnote.
Apart from conditioning the release of the $190 million in funds, the Trump administration is looking for an 11% cut in Federal funds for the Smithsonian for 2027.
The president’s Executive Order is widely opposed by Civil War and Reconstruction historians. It is an attempt to impose an inauthentic version of American history. The Executive Order says:
“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.”
The next section of the Executive Order says that the Smithsonian has come under the influence of a “divisive, race centered ideology”:
“Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology. This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive. For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” an exhibit representing that “[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.” The exhibit further claims that “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating “Race is a human invention.””
The author of the Executive Order, Donald Trump, objects to the Smithsonian for saying that “race is not a biological fact.”
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