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Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The History of Government Influence Over Universities
New York University professor of political science and presidential advisor, McGeorge Bundy, reviewing a document in his office on May 02, 1984. Credit - Bettmann Archive On March 27, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which aims to root out the 'corrosive ideology' that casts American history in a 'negative' light. Critics have denounced this as an attempt to control ideas—part of a broader trend of unprecedented attacks against academic freedom and the independence of institutions of learning. But the truth is that the push to align scholarship with government interests is not new. Throughout the 20th century, the relationship between colleges and the state was a messy one. American universities were vital to advancing the government's power and global influence, especially through Cold War-related research and development. Nonetheless, they were also a threat to the government when scholarship challenged official narratives and agendas. Today, Americans are witnessing a resurgence of such concerns. History shows that they may lead to censorship and curtail critical research—while also proving to be self-defeating. Many of the achievements that Americans most proudly celebrate were inspired by acknowledging the brutal realities of the past. The Cold War exemplified the complicated relationship between universities and the federal government. As the conflict dawned in the late 1940s, the government quickly realized that universities could do more to help than simply provide scientific breakthroughs and defense materials: the humanities and social sciences could be just as valuable in fighting the Soviets. At a time when the nation was engaged in ideological warfare, knowledge was power. Understanding the enemy—historically, politically, socially, psychologically, economically and culturally—was a matter of national security. And the government lacked the expertise necessary to understand foreign cultures and political systems. Officials understood that universities, by contrast, were well situated to provide this knowledge, so they enacted an array of programs to empower academics through grants and research institutes. The goal was to push scholarship toward topics that could inform domestic and foreign policy. The True Story of Appomattox Exposes the Dangers of Letting Myths Replace History As a result, over 20 years, the scale and scope of state influence on scholarly research grew dramatically. The government was instrumental in creating new academic fields, including area studies, and it shaped social science research for strategic purposes. One example was the creation of the Russian Research Center, which was a collaboration between academics and the government. Based at Harvard and directed by Harvard faculty, its board was comprised of professors from various universities. It drew on expertise from different fields, including history, political science, economics, geography, law, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, and other disciplines. Sigmund Diamond—a historian and sociologist who studied and briefly worked at Harvard during this period—chronicled the extent of the alliance. According to Diamond, although the center received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, it reported directly to the State Department and other intelligence agencies. Its mission was clear: to produce scholarly research and expert analysis useful to the government's ideological warfare against the Soviet Union. This included studies on the attitudes of Russians toward their homeland in relation to the rest of the world—the sources of Russian patriotism, attitudes toward authority, and how Russians felt about the suppression of individual freedom. With this knowledge, the government could exploit discontent, foster instability, and leverage dissent against Soviet policies. The center at Harvard was just one example; there were others at universities across the nation. In the early 1960s, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy delivered a lecture at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He emphasized the strong connections that 'bind the world of power and the world of learning,' arguing that 'there is gain for both the political world and the academy from an intensified process of engagement and of choosing sides and of engaging in the battle.' The government, in his view, would benefit greatly from historians whose work illuminated a 'deeper sense of the realities of power and its use.' But the government's alliance with the academic community came with risks. If critical scholarship could dissect the enemy and boost American Cold War efforts, it could also be turned inward. Research disciplines that probed into the historical, political, social, and cultural vulnerabilities of other nations could also cast a critical eye on the U.S., raising sobering questions about American history and the nation's unflattering record on civil rights, social unrest, imperialism, and more. That made universities dangerous, and in the anti-communist hysteria of Cold War America, the government viewed them with suspicion. As molders of the nation's youths, educators were under scrutiny lest they indoctrinate students with radical ideas. Government officials stoked this paranoia. 'Countless times,' remarked Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy—perhaps the era's most prominent red baiter—in 1952, 'I have heard parents throughout the country complain that their sons and daughters were sent to college as good Americans and returned four years later as wild-eyed radicals.' Academics who offered critical assessments of the nation's history and policies were suspected of communist sympathies; they caught the eye of the FBI and the government subjected them to surveillance and intimidation. In 1956, a survey of over 2,000 professors showed that 61% had been contacted by the FBI; 40% worried that students might misrepresent their politics; and about a quarter would not express their views for fear of the government. The FBI targeted some historians in particular. The FBI considered them dangerous because of their ability to challenge patriotic myths and undermine the accepted narrative about the nation's past. This was allegedly dangerous not only in the classroom, but also in the public square as it could raise questions about government policy. That risked stirring up public dissent and calls for reform. A Historian's Case for Protecting Even Offensive Speech on Campus C. Vann Woodward, the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize-winning Yale historian, was one scholar who landed under government surveillance for his critical views of America's past. More than any other historian of the 20th century, Woodward's writing exposed the horrific realities of racial segregation in America. He was also a staunch proponent of free speech and civil rights. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. drew inspiration from his scholarship. When Woodward criticized the House Un-American Activities Committee—which members of Congress used to engage in anti-communist witch-hunts—and signed a petition calling for its elimination, he provoked government scrutiny. The historian would later remark that his profession offered a corrective to the 'complacent and nationalist reading of our past.' But during the Cold War, the U.S. government had no patience for potentially subversive views about the nation's past—even if they were accurate. It wanted scholars to offer penetrating insights into the history and politics of foreign regimes, but not at home. Patriotism became a litmus test, and scholars who applied their expertise to offer critical analyses of America's revered narratives were suspected of harboring a dangerous un-American ideology. Today, government anxieties about historical discourse have resurfaced. Trump's executive order warns of a 'distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.' It condemns what his administration sees as an effort to 'undermine the remarkable achievements' of the nation and 'foster a sense of national shame.' But the truth is that this directive risks undermining the potential for such 'remarkable achievements' in the future. In many cases, including expanding civil (or legal) rights for African Americans and women, progress resulted from the work of scholars like Woodward and the way it empowered Americans to grapple with the less savory chapters in the country's past. Americans acknowledged an un-sanitized version of U.S. history and worked to correct wrongs in order to ensure a brighter future. The lessons from the Cold War's record of state censorship of ideas are clear. Nuanced historical truth cannot thrive or die based on its political usefulness to the current administration. Suppressing the complexity of the nation's past to curate a comforting national story will not lead to truth, sanity, or the sorts of achievements that Trump wants to celebrate. History matters, even if it does not align with the interests of those in power. Trump's attempts to control the narrative of American history is not merely a threat to academic freedom, but also to the nation's ability to confront its past and shape better policies for the future. Perhaps the President is right to worry about institutions of learning. Because knowledge, when un-policed, threatens the status quo. In a free society, that's a virtue, not a threat. Jeffrey Rosario is assistant professor at Loma Linda University in southern California. He is currently writing a book on religious dissent against U.S. imperialism at the turn of the 20th century. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
BBC News
20-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
'Biological reality': What genetics has taught us about race
As US President Donald Trump takes aim at the Smithsonian Institution for "anti-American ideology", Adam Rutherford examines what the science of genetics has taught us about race. When scientists unveiled the first draft of the Human Genome Project 25 years ago, it seemed to deliver the final word on some antiquated myths about race. It provided definitive evidence that racial groupings have no biological basis. In fact, there is more genetic variation within racial groups than between them. Race, it showed, is a social construct. But despite that fundamental finding, which has only been reinforced as work on human genomes has continued, race and ethnicity are still often deployed to categorise human populations as distinct biological groups. These are views that can be found circulating in the pseudoscience on social media, but they also still creep into scientific research and healthcare systems. It is even more troubling when this thinking finds its way into the halls of government. President Donald Trump and his administration have made no secret of his rejection of many aspects of the scientific worldview. Since returning to the White House, he has made sweeping cuts to science funding for biomedical and climate research, but in a recent Executive Order, Trump took aim at what most scientists now regard as biological reality. Entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", the Presidential order, signed by Trump, targeted an exhibition in the Smithsonian American Art Museum called "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture". The order is part of a broader attempt to shape American culture by eliminating "improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology" from the institute's museums. It states: "Museums in our Nation's capital should be places where individuals go to learn – not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history." The exhibition itself is criticised in the text for promoting the idea that "race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating 'race is a human invention'". The order offers the exhibition as an example of a "harmful and oppressive" shift in the narrative portraying American values. This is the point when people like me, a geneticist who specialises in the history of race science, get a little bit vexed. The issue here is that the sentence cited from the Smithsonian is 100% correct. This is neither controversial in science nor history. Human variation is, of course, very real. People are different, and we can see those differences in skin pigmentation, in hair colour and texture and in other physical characteristics. These differences cluster in locations around the world: people from the same region on average look more similar to each other than to people from other areas – so far, so obvious. In the 18th Century, these traits were the primary determinants for a new fashion for categorising humans in supposedly scientific terms. The Swedish botanist Karl Linnaeus is legitimately credited as the father of modern biology, as he gave us the classification system we still use today: genus and species. Every living thing is named according to this system, for example the bacteria Escherichia coli, or the lion, Panthera leo, or Gorilla gorilla, which probably doesn't need explaining. We are Homo sapiens – wise people. But in his foundational work Systemae Naturae, Linnaeus introduced another tier of classification for us, designated primarily by that most visible of human traits: pigmentation. Linnaeus gave us four types of human, lumped together by continental landmasses: Asiaticus – people with "yellow skin", and straight black hair; Americanus – indigenous Americans, with "red skin" also with straight black hair; Africanus – "black skinned" people with tight curls in their hair; and Europeaus – "white skinned" with blue eyes. These designations are clearly absurd – none of the colours are accurate, even if you took the obviously incorrect view that millions of people share the same skin tones even within those categories. But the roots of the race designations we still use today are visible in these labels. Some of these terms have fallen out of social acceptability and are considered racist. But we still use "black" and "white" as descriptors for millions of people, none of whom really have either black or white skin. Even if this colour scheme were true, Linnaeus' original descriptions only began with physical traits. What he included in later editions of Systemae Naturae, which became the basis for scientific racism, were portrayals of behaviours. Asiaticus were described as "haughty, greedy and ruled by opinions" while Americanus were labelled "stubborn, zealous, regulated by customs". Africanus women were denoted as being "without shame" while both sexes were said to be "crafty, lazy, and governed by caprice". He described Europaeus as "gentle, acute, inventive, governed by laws". By any definition in any age, these assertions are racist and entirely incorrect. Of course, in examining history, we must be wary of judging people from the past by our own standards. But as the foundational text of modern biology, introducing a classification system for humans that is ludicrous, racist and most importantly, hierarchical, would leave an indelible mark on the centuries that followed. Over the next 200 years, many men would seek to refine these categories with new metrics, including pseudoscientific interpretations of craniometry, or skull measurements. They never settled on a definitive answer about how many races there are – none of the characteristics that were being used are immutable, nor exclusive to the people to whom they were supposedly essential. We call this ideology "racial essentialism". But all of the many schemes put white Europeans as superior to all others. It was biologist Charles Darwin who first began to unpick these ideas, recognising in his 1871 book the Descent of Man that there was much more continuity in traits between people that had been designated as discrete races. By the beginning of the 20th Century, molecular biology had entered the stage, and the era of genetics would dismantle the biological concept of race. By the time we began to look at how genes are shared in families and populations, we saw that similarities do indeed cluster in groups, but these groupings do not align with the longstanding attempts to classify the races. The true metric of human difference is at a genetic level. In the 20th Century, when we began to unravel our genomes, and observe how people are similar and different in our DNA, we saw that the terms in use for several centuries bore little meaningful relation to the underlying genetics. Even though only a tiny percentage of our DNA differs between individuals, the genome is so large and complex that there is great diversity. Geneticists are still working to unravel how this alters people's health, for example. But those genetic differences do not delineate along the lines of what we call race. They follow ancestral lines, can differ by geographic location and can be traced through historic migration patterns. What we now know is that there is more genetic diversity in people of recent African descent than in the rest of the world put together. Take two people, for example from Ethiopia and Namibia, and they will be more different to each other at a genetic level than either one of them is to a white European, or indeed a Japanese person, an Inuit or an Indian. This includes the genes that are involved in pigmentation. Yet, for historical reasons, we continue to refer to both Ethiopians and Namibians under the race definition of "black". Or take African Americans, people largely descended from enslaved Africans brought to the New World: sequencing the genomes of Black Americans reveals echoes of the history of transatlantic slavery. They not only mixed genetic ancestry from the handful of West African countries from which their ancestors were taken, but also significant amounts of White European DNA. This reflects the fact that slave owners had sexual relationships – many of which would not have been consensual – with enslaved people. Therefore, the simple categorisation of descendants of the enslaved as "black" similarly does not make biological sense. They are genetically diverse in themselves and different from the African ancestors from which they are descended. To lump them together makes no scientific sense. So it is by consensus, usage and history that we continue to use the term "black". This is what we mean by a social construct. The concept of race has little utility as a biological taxonomy. But it is enormously important socially and culturally. Social constructs are how the world works: money and time are both socially constructed too. The value of a pound or dollar is applied by agreement against goods and services. Time passes unerringly, but hours and minutes are entirely arbitrary units. So, while race is not biologically meaningful, it has biologically meaningful consequences. The impact of most diseases correlates with poverty. As people of ethnic minority ancestry tend to be in lower tiers of socio-economic status, diseases tend to affect them more severely. This is true across the board, but was exposed early on in the pandemic. Black, South Asian and in America Hispanic people were disproportionately infected with and died of Covid-19. The media immediately began to search for a reason that reified a biological version of race, sometimes focusing on vitamin D metabolism, which is connected with melanin production, and has effects on viral infections. Some studies showed that lower levels of vitamin D did associate with susceptibility to covid infection among black people. But this is a correlation not a cause. More like this:• The people whose DNA held a secret• Why you have viruses hiding in our DNA• The mystery of the human genome's dark matter Underlying any slight differences in biology are much more potent causes: while so many of us were locked down, frontline NHS workers, people cleaning up our rubbish and driving our buses all were more likely to be from ethnic minorities. They simply had a higher risk of being exposed and so infected with the virus. Combine that with the fact that minority groups are more likely to live in multigenerational, dense urban housing, and the supposedly biological susceptibility fades. This is why genetics has played such an important role in the dismantling of a scientific justification of race and understanding racism itself. And it's why the latest statement from Trump's White House is troubling many in the scientific community. Trump frequently speaks about aspects of genetics to make political points. One view that he has expressed repeatedly is that some people, and predictably himself, are genetically superior. "You have good genes, you know that, right?" he said in September 2020 to a rally in Minnesota – a state that is more than 80% white. "You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? You have good genes in Minnesota." Similarly, in the successful 2024 campaign, he denounced immigrants as having "bad genes". It's hard for someone who studies genes – and the strange and sometimes troubling history of genetics – to understand even what might constitute a "bad" or "good" gene. Ours may be a pernicious history, but the trajectory of genetics has been one that tends towards progress, and equity for all, as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. -- For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Washington Post
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Trump wants to limit U.S. history to the shiny parts. It won't work.
Developers reshape reality. They dress up the drab and market it as the unique. Donald Trump spent about half a century hawking condos, casinos and all sorts of middling products that he sold as spectacular, with some success (and plenty of failure, too). Now, he's taking a product with nearly 250 years' worth of blemishes and beauty spots and he's remarketing it in his usual style — as utter perfection, made possible exclusively by him. The product is the history of the United States, which earned its remarkable place in the cavalcade of nations expressly because its troubles and trials forged its strength and stability. But in the Trump catalogue, there are only shiny objects, and so the museums of the Smithsonian — home to Dorothy's ruby slippers but also to bills of sale for human enslaved people — are now in cover-up mode, under 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History' orders to remove anything the president might consider 'improper ideology.' The nation's attic, cluttered and messy like the country it reflects, is henceforth to display only 'the remarkable achievements of the United States.' There's a problem with Trump's impulsive orders, even beyond their legal, constitutional, moral and political flaws: They often stem from baseless assertions. Just as Trump, without having set foot in the place during his years in Washington, proposed to ransack the Kennedy Center because its programming was insufficiently middlebrow for his taste, now he's coming after the Smithsonian's presentation of U.S. history without knowing what the museums actually show. So, let's wander through the National Museum of American History, one of my favorite branches of the Smithsonian. It's the vast repository on the National Mall of the artifacts of our common past: former president Abraham Lincoln's top hat, the original Star-Spangled Banner, a baseball signed by Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, but also the manacles that kept Kunta Kinte chained up in 'Roots' and Ku Klux Klan hoods, posters and sheet music. Had Trump actually visited, he might have seen that his vision of the country (to the extent that he has one) has been on view at the museum for decades. The culture police of the Trump administration pretend they are the first to correct excesses at the nation's great institutions, removing books at the Naval Academy, canceling shows at the Kennedy Center, squelching scholarship at the Wilson Center. But we have been here before: Every generation brings some effort to hide our misdeeds or deny our history. Under former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, a drive to give corporate powers a louder voice changed how some museums tell the country's story. Today, the American History museum features the General Motors Hall of Transportation, the Mars (as in candy bars) Hall of American Business, a housing exhibit sponsored by the National Association of Realtors and exhibitions made possible by ExxonMobil and Monsanto. The history museum is an unintentional display of the culture wars over how to tell our story. Its offerings range from decades-old shows that celebrate U.S. presidents and train locomotives to newer exhibits that are thoroughly bilingual, brimming with left-wing jargon and liberal takes on the American past. An exhibit previewing the forthcoming National Museum of the American Latino — focusing 'on diverse stories of resistance' — presents Puerto Ricans' story as a tale of 'their colonial relationship with the United States,' without mentioning that Puerto Ricans have voted multiple times to endorse options including statehood or their current commonwealth status. Independence was never the top choice. The museum is also a celebration of an idealized America, one in which it's possible to mount a show about American enterprise that barely mentions slavery. Yet one floor up, an exhibit about American democracy puts the slavery debate center stage, connecting moral questions over human bondage with contemporary struggles over voting rights and the role of women. Text describing a Chicago Transit Authority streetcar from 1959 says nothing about racial division in that city, but a group of middle school kids from Ohio who ran into that car during my visit knew in their bones what the streetcar symbolized: 'Yo, get to the back of the bus!' one boy called out. 'You can't sit here!' another piped in. Rancor about race is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that we go there even when the powers that be try to muffle reality. What Trump's culture warriors can't accept is that Americans have been fitfully but satisfyingly engaged in debate about the country's character from the very start. Even in its celebratory exhibit on American enterprise, the museum highlights the Founders' discord over how to shape the country, with Alexander Hamilton favoring a focus on manufacturing and Thomas Jefferson pushing for an agrarian society. Parts of the museum treat visitors like thinking adults and parts dismiss them as dimwits who need to be told how great their country is. Now, Trump seeks to homogenize the place. He has always believed that if he can control the messaging, he will shape reality. He believed it as a man who wanted to erect the tallest tower on Fifth Avenue, so he renumbered the floors in Trump Tower, turning the 58th story into the 68th floor. He has sued the authors of books about him, sacked underlings who brought him bad news, sought to strip licenses from those who broadcast chronicles of his misdeeds. Now, at the Smithsonian, he intends to rewrite history. To an extent, he can. Fear that he might do far worse often results in near-instant compliance. This power grab is not the overreach that will deliver the nation from its populist spasm. It will likely take a rough economic passage to nudge the pendulum back toward a more honest and trusting society. But enough Americans instinctively resent being told what to think that the cynical manipulation of the Smithsonian will produce some backlash. Our history, warts and all, teaches us that.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Removed Confederate monuments in Maryland to remain hidden, despite Trump executive order
BALTIMORE — The statue of Captain John O'Donnell, an 18th century merchant who enslaved dozens of Black people on his Maryland plantation, won't be returning to its former perch in Baltimore's Canton Square, despite an executive order last month from President Donald Trump. Neither will the four Confederate monuments removed from their pedestals in the dead of night in 2017 and later shipped to California to become part of a museum exhibit. Nor will the plaque formerly attached to a wall in the capitol rotunda honoring combatants on both sides of the Civil War. 'Whether or not the plaque qualifies under the president's executive order, it will not be returning to the State House,' Carter Elliott, senior press spokesperson for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, wrote in a one-sentence email to The Baltimore Sun. Trump issued an executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History' on March 27 requiring the reinstallation of many Confederate monuments that were removed following the nationwide protests sparked by the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minnesota while in police custody. Trump's directive has raised questions about the fate of more than a dozen statues, plaques and grave markers spread throughout Maryland that honored people once perceived as heroes but now viewed by many as oppressors. But the executive order is limited only to monuments taken down after Jan. 1, 2020, and only to those under the control of the federal government. A Sun reporter inquired about the status of 13 monuments previously located in the Free State; a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior confirmed that all were removed from state, municipal or private property. The statues and grave markers 'are not NPS [National Park Service] or federally-managed lands,' J. Elizabeth Peace, a senior public affairs specialist for the department, wrote in an email. The first four monuments were taken down by former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh on June 16, 2017 — or 30 months before the start date specified by Trump's order — after a 'Unite the Right' rally in Virginia turned violent, causing the deaths of three people and injuring dozens. For the next six years, the monuments were held in an unsecured lot managed by the city Department of Transportation, where they were vandalized, according to an investigation conducted by the city's Office of the Inspector General. A police report was not filed until six months after the damage was discovered, and the city did not pursue an insurance claim to recoup the loss. The statues were later shipped to Los Angeles, where they are expected to be part of an exhibit opening in October in that city's Museum of Contemporary Art. A second wave of monument removals in Maryland took place in 2020 and 2021 in the wake of nationwide protests that erupted after a white police officer knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, killing him. They include: •A Confederate soldiers monument that stood in front of the Red Brick Courthouse in Rockville was defaced and knocked down June 16, 2020. It was later relocated to White's Ferry near the Virginia border, where it was vandalized again. The family owning the statue has since placed it into storage. •A Confederate soldier grave marker in front of Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring honored the remains of 17 unidentified Confederate soldiers. It was pulled down by protesters on June 17, 2020. •The remnants of a Confederate soldier statue was toppled and beheaded in Frederick's Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The damage was discovered on June 29, 2020. •The statue of Private Benjamin Welch Owens was knocked down outside Lothian's Mt. Calvary Anglican Church and spray-painted red. Owens had served in a Confederate Maryland military unit during the Civil War; the vandalism was found on July 3, 2020. •The statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood was tipped over by protesters on July 3, 2020, then dumped into the Inner Harbor. •O'Donnell's monument was taken down from its plinth in O'Donnell Square on April 5, 2021, by Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott in response to a petition seeking the statue's removal that collected about 1,000 signatures. •A plaque memorializing Confederate Gen. John Winder stood outside the Wicomico County Courthouse on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It was removed by county officials June 12, 2021. •The plaque in the Maryland State House was removed on June 15, 2021, following a nearly yearlong effort by House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones. The plaque depicted the American and Confederate flags, and its inscription said the Maryland Civil War Centennial Commission 'did not attempt to decide who was right and who was wrong' in the conflict. •The 'Talbot Boys Statue' commemorating Talbot County residents who fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War was dislodged from its base outside the Easton County Courthouse on June 15, 2021, by county officials. They arranged for the statue to be relocated to a historic battlefield in Virginia. But not every Confederate monument in Maryland has been destroyed, relocated outside state borders or hidden away from public view. At least one memorial remains in Maryland, and it is on federal lands — the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee on horseback that looms over the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg. But it's unlikely to be moving anytime soon. A bill to remove the Lee monument was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 28, 2024 by U.S. Rep. David Trone, a Democrat from Maryland, but failed to make it out of committee. -------------
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
With its executive order targeting the Smithsonian, the Trump administration opens up a new front in the history wars
I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums. I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society. This love of learning history continued into my years as a graduate student of history, when I would spend hours at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum learning about the history of human flight and ballooning. As a professor, I've integrated the institution's exhibits into my history courses. The Trump administration, however, is not happy with the way the Smithsonian Institution and other U.S. museums are portraying history. On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which asserted, '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. 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.' Trump singled out a few museums, including the Smithsonian, dedicating a whole section of the order on 'saving' the institution from 'divisive, race-centered ideology.' Of course, history is contested. There will always be a variety of views about what should be included and excluded from America's story. For example, in my own research, I found that Prohibition-era school boards in the 1920s argued over whether it was appropriate for history textbooks to include pictures of soldiers drinking to illustrate the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion. But most recent debates center on how much attention should be given to the history of the nation's accomplishments over its darker chapters. The Smithsonian, as a national institution that receives most of its funds from the federal government, has sometimes found itself in the crosshairs. The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 thanks to its namesake, British chemist James Smithson. Smithson willed his estate to his nephew and stated that if his nephew died without an heir, the money – roughly US$15 million in today's dollars – would be donated to the U.S. to found 'an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.' The idea of a national institution dedicated to history, science and learning was contentious from the start. In her book 'The Stranger and the Statesman,' historian Nina Burleigh shows how Smithson's bequest was nearly lost due to battles between competing interests. Southern plantation owners and western frontiersmen, including President Andrew Jackson, saw the establishment of a national museum as an unnecessary assertion of federal power. They also challenged the very idea of accepting a gift from a non-American and thought that it was beneath the dignity of the government to confer immortality on someone simply because of a large donation. In the end, a group led by congressman and former president John Quincy Adams ensured Smithson's vision was realized. Adams felt that the country was failing to live up to its early promise. He thought a national museum was an important way to burnish the ideals of the young republic and educate the public. Today the Smithsonian runs 14 education and research centers, the National Zoo and 21 museums, including the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was created with bipartisan support during President George W. Bush's administration. In the introduction to his book 'Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects,' cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin talks about how the institution has also supported hundreds of small and large institutions outside of the nation's capital. In 2024, the Smithsonian sent over 2 million artifacts on loan to museums in 52 U.S. states and territories and 33 foreign countries. It also partners with over 200 affiliate museums. YouGov has periodically tracked Americans' approval of the Smithsonian, which has held steady at roughly 68% approval and 2% disapproval since 2020. Precursors to the Trump administration's efforts to reshape the Smithsonian took place in the 1990s. In 1991, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which was then known as the National Museum of American Art, created an exhibition titled 'The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920.' Conservatives complained that the museum portrayed western expansion as a tale of conquest and destruction, rather than one of progress and nation-building. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the exhibit represented 'an entirely hostile ideological assault on the nation's founding and history.' The exhibition proved popular: Attendance to the National Museum of American Art was 60% higher than it had been during the same period the year prior. But the debate raised questions about whether public museums were able to express ideas that are critical of the U.S. without risk of censorship. In 1994, controversy again erupted, this time at the National Air and Space Museum over a forthcoming exhibition centered on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima 50 years prior. Should the exhibition explore the loss of Japanese lives? Or emphasize the U.S. war victory? Veterans groups insisted that the atomic bomb ended the war and saved 1 million American lives, and demanded the removal of photographs of the destruction and a melted Japanese school lunch box from the exhibit. Meanwhile, other activists protested the exhibition by arguing that a symbol of human destruction shouldn't be commemorated at an institution that's supposed to celebrate human achievement. Republicans won the House in 1994 and threatened cuts to the Smithsonian's budget over the Enola Gay exhibition, compelling curators to walk a tightrope. In the end, the fuselage of the Enola Gay was displayed in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. But the exhibit would not tell the full story of the plane's role in the war from a myriad of perspectives. In 2019, The New York Times launched the 1619 project, which aimed to reframe the country's history by placing slavery and its consequences at its very center. The first Trump administration quickly responded by forming its 1776 commission. In January 2021, it produced a report critiquing the 1619 project, claiming that an emphasis on the country's history of racism and slavery was counterproductive to promoting 'patriotic education.' That same year, Trump pledged to build 'a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live,' with 250 statues to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. President Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021. Trump reissued it after retaking the White House, and pointed to figures he'd like to see included, such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Betsy Ross, Sitting Bull, Bob Hope, Thurgood Marshall and Whitney Houston. I don't think there is anything wrong with honoring Americans, though I think a focus on celebrities and major figures clouds the fascinating histories of ordinary Americans. I also find it troubling that there seems to be such a concerted effort to so forcefully shape the teaching and understanding of history via threats and bullying. Yale historian Jason Stanley has written about how aspiring authoritarian governments seek to control historical narratives and discourage an exploration of the complexities of the past. Historical scholarship requires an openness to debate and a willingness to embrace new findings and perspectives. It also involves the humility to accept that no one – least of all the government – has a monopoly on the truth. In his executive order, Trump noted that 'Museums in our Nation's capital should be places where individuals go to learn.' I share that view. Doing so, however, means not dismantling history, but instead complicating the story – in all its messy glory. The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University Read more: From Greenland to Fort Bragg, America is caught in a name game where place names become political tools Trump has purged the Kennedy Center's board, which in turn made him its chair – why does that matter? Inside the collapse of Disney's America, the US history-themed park that almost was Jennifer Tucker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
