Trump brings censorship fears

Express Tribune

22-02-2025

In an Instagram post last week, Oscar-winning actor Julianne Moore wrote she was "deeply saddened" by the Trump administration's decision to put her 2007 children's book Freckleface Strawberry under review and removing it from schools serving the children of US military personnel and civilian defense employees.
As per DW, the book tells the tale of a red-headed youngster who hates her freckles but eventually learns to love them - as well as the differences of others. According to The Guardian, the Department of Defense circulated a memo stating that all library books "potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics" were being looked into, and that a "small number" of said books were being held for "further review" as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
"It is a book I wrote for my children and for other kids to remind them that we all struggle, but are united by our humanity and our community" the Oscar-winner wrote in her social media post. "I am truly saddened and never thought I would see this in a country where freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right."
Many in the world of arts and humanities fear that a climate of censorship is impending - and it's far from the only concern.
'Assault on free expression'
In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that mandated all federal agencies end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. The move was felt in the arts scene, namely in several dozen major museums that receive federal funding, including the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art. These institutions were left to determine whether their programs fit with the new directives that consider diversity efforts to be discriminatory. The National Gallery of Art already announced it would close its Office of Belonging and Inclusion.
"The DEI assault of the Trump administration and... censorship of activities that in any way touch on race is upon us. And it's very incoherent because there's no clear guideline for what it means to be racially biased when in fact you're simply trying to redress grievances of the past," says Maxwell Anderson, a former museum curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and director of the Whitney Museum. "So there's a kind of free-floating assault on free expression."
Anderson, who now runs the foundation Souls Grown Deep, which supports Black artists in the southern US, says he and other equality-driven organisations are keeping a close eye on the manoeuvers of the new administration.
"Because it seems that it's now becoming illegal in the United States to talk about the history of race," Anderson said. "This kind of erasure is so reminiscent of the fascist movements in the '30s, so for us in the US, it's shocking. We all assumed that if Trump was elected, it would be a devastating blow to culture, but we didn't know how deep it would cut."
Federal support gets the axe
During his first term in office, Trump dissolved the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, a historically non-partisan group established by Republican president Ronald Reagan on "the fundamental belief that creativity, diversity, and democracy are intrinsically bound, and that the arts and the humanities can be a powerful force for social change."
The committee has brought together prominent artists, academics and museum professionals to advise on cultural policy. In the past, it has included members such as Frank Sinatra and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, among others.
In 2017, President Trump banned the group after 17 members resigned over his response to the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Joe Biden reinstated the group in 2022, citing the importance of arts and humanities. Then in January, Trump dissolved the group once again in a series of executive orders aimed at rolling back the previous administration's policies on art and culture and historical commemoration.
Already, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federal agency that is the largest funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide, cut its FY26 Challenge America grants, which gave millions in federal funding to small arts organisations that extended outreach to underserved communities in the US. The organisation announced that funds and manpower would now go towards the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - which along with the creation of a new national sculpture garden, is one of the president's planned projects.
Kennedy Centre takeover
Yet almost ironically, President Trump recently came to the helm of one of the largest performing arts institutions in the US: The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
The president orchestrated a veritable takeover of the cultural enterprise that - uniquely - is part of the US government. It hosts more than 2,000 performances a year across artistic disciplines and is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the National Opera.
President Trump fired many of the previous board members, replacing them with hand-picked allies, including Second Lady Usha Vance, his advisor Dan Scavino and his chief of staff Susie Wiles, among others. They, in turn, elected him chairperson.
President Trump said he wants the institution to move away from "woke culture," writing on social media that there would be "No more drag shows, or other anti-American propaganda - only the best."
A number of artists have since cancelled upcoming performances out of protest at the takeover - as well as eyebrow-raising program changes that occurred at the same time but supposedly have nothing to do with it. Finn, a children's musical, about a young shark who realises he relates more to smaller fish than other sharks, was cancelled. The National Symphony Orchestra concert titled A Peacock Among Pigeons which was described as a celebration of love and diversity, was also postponed indefinitely shortly after the regime change on the board.
Anderson points out that, in contrast to the performing arts scene, museums typically plan their exhibitions years in advance.
"So the conundrum will be that there are plenty of exhibitions on the calendar at museums nationwide that had works by Black artists or works that were ideologically rich and textured and controversial in the eyes of the new administration that are still on the books." Cancelling them, Anderson says, may pose more of a challenge.
In the meantime, he hopes arts institution leaders will have the courage to stand up to what is happening, despite the many challenges present in doing so.
After all, he points out: "Self-censorship is in some ways a more dangerous force than the pressures we're under today."