In Challenge to Trump, Smithsonian Says It Controls Personnel Decisions; The New York Times, June 9, 2025

Robin Pogrebin Graham Bowley and Zachary Small, The New York Times; In Challenge to Trump, Smithsonian Says It Controls Personnel Decisions

 "In a challenge to President Trump, the Smithsonian said on Monday that it retained the power over personnel decisions, a statement that came in the wake of the president’s announcement that he was firing Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery.

“All personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of the secretary, with oversight by the board,” said a statement from the Smithsonian, which oversees that museum and 20 others, as well as libraries, research centers and the National Zoo. “Lonnie G. Bunch, the secretary, has the support of the Board of Regents in his authority and management of the Smithsonian.”

The statement came hours after the Board of Regents, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed the president’s announcement at a quarterly meeting...

The fight over Ms. Sajet’s tenure has further complicated matters for Mr. Bunch, who was already under pressure to navigate a recognition of presidential power while defending the institution’s autonomy. Created by Congress as a trust to be administered by the board and the secretary, the institution receives two-thirds of its $1 billion in annual funding from the federal government.

The Smithsonian’s silence after Mr. Trump’s announcement about Ms. Sajet, the first woman to lead the National Portrait Gallery, appeared to signal a reluctance to challenge the president. But the board on Monday reacted in a way that, if not a complete statement of support for Ms. Sajet, was a clear effort by the institution to reassert its autonomy."

The Smithsonian faces an existential crisis. The world is watching.; The Washington Post; June 4, 2025

Philip Kennicott , The Washington Post; The Smithsonian faces an existential crisis. The world is watching.

"The Smithsonian has a long and sadly craven history of caving to critics, including making changes to exhibitions after pressure from activists and members of Congress. Former Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough censored an NPG exhibition of portraiture featuring LGBT people in 2010, after pressure from conservative Christian activists. Clough forced museum curators to remove a single video, by the gay artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz, which actually made the exhibition more popular when it traveled to Brooklyn and Tacoma, Washington.

The precedent for that intrusion on editorial independence had been established at least since 1995, when the National Air and Space Museum censored an exhibition about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. The Enola Gay controversy, which centered on some veterans’ opposition to an evenhanded curatorial discussion of why the bomb was dropped and whether it was necessary, damaged the institution, but it also helped foster widespread and lasting resistance to censorship and content meddling throughout the organization.

But those examples were mere brush fires compared with the destruction that would follow a new precedent, the right of the president of the United States to dictate hiring and content. Trump’s ongoing efforts to assert control over the performing arts, museum sector and the larger American historical narrative have been audacious and destructive. Subscriptions sales at the Kennedy Center are down some 36 percent from last year, and community arts and humanities groups around the country are suffering from the loss of small but essential grants from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services."

Museum’s Plan to Include Cosby Material Draws Criticism From Accusers; New York Times, 3/27/16

Graham Bowley, New York Times; Museum’s Plan to Include Cosby Material Draws Criticism From Accusers:

"Several women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault say they are upset that the new National Museum of African American History and Culture plans not to mention their accusations in an exhibition that recognizes Mr. Cosby’s pioneering work in comedy and television.

“If they just speak about the contributions, there will be this enormous presence that is not talked about,” Patricia Leary Steuer, 59, who has accused Mr. Cosby of assaulting her decades ago, said on Saturday...

The Smithsonian Institution faced questions last year when its National Museum of African Art featured works on loan from the substantial art collection of Mr. Cosby and his wife, Camille.

The Smithsonian eventually put up a sign telling visitors that the museum did not condone the behavior of which Mr. Cosby is accused.

The situation at the new history and culture museum is different from that one, Smithsonian officials have said, noting that Mr. Cosby’s presence in it will be minimal and that he has not donated money or objects to it."