The nation’s museum is in the habit of not answering questions from the nation.
A recent White House report concluded that the Smithsonian Institution has succumbed to “ideological capture,” accusing it of “extreme political activism” while advocating “a radical view of American history.”
The administration has evidence to back up the charges. The report is full of quotes, photos, and screenshots unambiguously documenting where the museum promotes left-wing ideology related to critical race theory, post-colonial theory, immigration, transgenderism, gun rights, and abortion — frequently adopting the cultural Marxist “oppressed” versus “oppressor” framing American history.
Agree or disagree, it’s clear that the Smithsonian has taken a side in these political debates. But it gets worse.
Last month, Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, was confronted by members of the House Administration Committee with sexual imagery displayed in the museum. Her performance failed to reassure about the wisdom or candor animating her institution.
When Rep. Nancy Mace (SC-1) asked if “images of sexual fetishes are appropriate for children,” Hartig refused to answer. Instead, Hartig said the museum “strives to represent all Americans” —seemingly prioritizing those into sadomasochism over those with children.
Hartig continued to disappoint when reminded by Rep. Tim Burchett (TN-2) that “you have pictures of bondage” at the museum. She again refused to say anything was inappropriate.
Some may be untroubled by such pictures, but surely Hartig’s non-answer answers are unacceptable to most Americans — who after all pay for her museum.
Unfortunately, as I know from experience, dodging fair questions about museum displays is a Smithsonian specialty. That’s the case even when objective scientific falsehoods are being presented to the public as uncontroversial truths.
Adjacent to the National Museum of American History is the Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). There, one sees large photos of humans and apes on the wall with the imposing words: “You and chimpanzees are 98.8% genetically similar.” The exhibit further states, “There is only about a 1.2% genetic difference between modern humans and chimpanzees.”
Figures close or identical to those are commonly repeated in popular media and science books. Very deliberately, they are intended to challenge traditional ideas about the exceptional place of human beings in nature. They also happen to be false.
Last year a paper titled “Complete sequencing of ape genomes,” published in the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, Nature, found that human and chimpanzee genomes are in fact approximately 15 percent different. That is an order of magnitude greater than what the Smithsonian claims.
I wrote a public letter to top Smithsonian brass about this: Dr. Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the National Museum of Natural History; Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch II, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and Kate Forester, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Smithsonian Board of Regents. I included photos of the relevant signage, and asked if they would fix the exhibit.
From a museum spokesman, I received — you guessed it — a dodge. It was a similar non-answer answer to that offered by Dr. Hartig: they will “factor such new discoveries into relevant updates” — whenever that happens. Until then, the museum continues to promote taxpayer-funded misinformation.
This pattern of enforcing an agenda on life’s origins has a long history at the Smithsonian. Reported in 2005 in the The Wall Street Journal, a biologist at the NMNH, Richard Sternberg, was harassed by his supervisors for allowing the publication of a paper in a Smithsonian technical scientific journal which argued that animal body plans arose through intelligent design.
The federal government’s Office of Special Counsel investigated the retaliation, and found that Sternberg faced a “hostile work environment” with a “strong religious and political component,” all aiming to force him out of the Smithsonian.
The NMNH is not the only national science museum putting woke politics into practice. In 2022, a heroic bronze sculpture of Theodore Roosevelt was torn down from the plaza in front of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The U.S. president and visionary conservationist’s “racist” views required that he be erased from history.
But the Smithsonian is unique as a public institution: created as a “trust instrumentality of the United States, lawfully created by Congress in 1846 to exercise the authority of the United States.” It receives from the government “just under two-thirds of its annual budget.”
Politicians wonder why the public — across the political spectrum — is losing faith in government. Perhaps a straight and sensible answer now and then would help reassure us that our leaders don’t have an agenda to hide facts that contradict their ideologies.
Casey Luskin is a PhD geologist and attorney who is associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.
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