While Woke, so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies are being eliminated from many American institutions they are still in force at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. While we’ve witnessed many U.S. institutions—especially colleges, universities, government agencies, and corporations—reduce or eliminate DEI programs, we’re clearly not finished.
I reviewed a new report regarding the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. The 162 page “Saving America’s Story” was prepared by the White House Domestic Policy Council and describes in detail how the Smithsonian presents a largely negative and unfair view of American history and “no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated.” In short, the Smithsonian is presenting America through a lens of Marxism.
Let me share some specifics.
The Wall Street Journal explains that “the report’s examples show the degree to which progressives have captured the history museum. In one exhibit, the Pledge of Allegiance was described as a tool to ‘instill American nationalism through flag ceremonies.’” (WSJ, 7-9-2026).
That is enough to make one’s blood boil. “Nationalism”? How about a proud sense of love and patriotism for a flag that represents our American freedom that has been purchased and guaranteed throughout America’s history only by the great sacrifice—the “last full measure of devotion”—of the 1.1 million Americans who died—and millions more who were grievously wounded—over the last 250 years defending the freedoms we often take for granted.
WSJ continues, “the museum also highlights the worst facts about the Founders. Benjamin Franklin is called a racist and anti-immigrant, and Alexander Hamilton owned slaves, while the Museum engages in ‘downplaying or completely excluding facts about their abolitionist efforts.’” For example, Hamilton … “was a vocal critic of slavery and helped found the anti-slavery New York Manumission Society in 1785, which worked to end the slave trade.” Further, the Smithsonian official over Museums and Culture, Kevin Gover, stated he favored replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day because Columbus was a “slaver” and “killer.”
Another offensive example is the Smithsonian Art Museum and Learning Lab that declares that “Whiteness as a concept is foundational to the history of the United States, actively shaping this country’s social, cultural, political and economic structures.” “Whiteness”?! This is simply the Woke Leftwing imposing its modern-day identity politics on the past.
Further, the Museum also didn’t leave out Transgender politics. In its “We Belong Here” exhibit, viewers are told that “the struggle for equal opportunity in sports began long before Title 9 became law in 1972. And it continues today as transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender female athletes demand equality.” There is also an exhibit titled “Girlhood (It’s Complicated)” that purports to underscore the difficulty in “growing up female in the United States since the early republic in the face of patriarchal oppression.”
WOW.
While we are all entitled to our views, we are not entitled to our own facts and while no nation, including America, is perfect, our national and international accomplishments dwarf our failures and have done nothing less than preserve and advance the world. But that is not even the most important point. 62% of the Smithsonian is funded by the federal government—meaning our tax dollars—and it has an obligation to fairly tell our American story and accurately reflect our American history. This does not.
But DEI is where we are with the Woke American Left. According to the brutal dictates of the Thought Police, there can be no diversity of opinion or viewpoint or thought itself. A citizen is either Woke, or silenced, driven out of a job, banned on social media, and more frequently threatened physically with retaliation and, in the case of Charlie Kirk, assassinated on national television in front of millions.
As a nation, we have made great strides ending discrimination based upon race, religion, ethnicity, or gender, and moving in the direction of building a ‘more perfect union’ based upon Dr. Martin Luther King’s timeless principle that Americans should be judged only upon ‘the content of their character, not the color of their skin.’
DEI programs should be defunded and ended. Such programs purport to advance equality, but they actually do the opposite. They attack American history and government as systemically racist and sexist, focus exclusively on race and gender, and, in so doing, violate the very promise of 14th Amendment equal protection they claim to advance.
Shreveport attorney, Royal Alexander, worked in D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 8 years for two different Members of Congress from Louisiana.