Ask social studies teachers where they turn to find primary source documents and lessons on American history, and many will point to the Smithsonian Institute.
More than 4 in 5 high school history teachers say they use educational materials from federal institutions, including the museums, according to a recent survey.
But now some of these resources have come under fire from the White House.
In a report published earlier this month, the White House’s Domestic Policy Council takes aim at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which is located in central Washington on the National Mall, claiming that its leaders have warped the country’s story in order to “divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”
Critiques of the museum’s educational programming and teacher resources feature prominently.
The organization, the report argues, has “developed and promoted a national education curriculum that presents a radical view of American history and elevated individuals to positions of leadership to advance that radical view through educational programming.”
President Donald Trump targeted the Smithsonian at the beginning of his second term, issuing an executive order last year that said the museums had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” and directing a review of exhibits.
The critiques of K-12 instructional materials and youth programming at the Smithsonian come as Trump’s administration has called for more “patriotic” education and argued that schools are indoctrinating students into “anti-American ideologies,” including several around race and gender that more than 20 states have also restricted.
“It’s extremely consistent with other things the administration has done surrounding history,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
In a memo to staff, Smithsonian leadership rejected the report’s findings and defended the institution’s scholarship.
“While there will always be room for improvement, this report is not a fair characterization of the work and totality of the National Museum of American History,” wrote Lonnie Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, in a staff email first obtained by the Washington Post.
The National Museum of American History did not respond to a request for comment.
Report argues materials have ‘denigrated and displaced whites’
The museum’s free educational resources are vast, with more than 100 lessons and activities designed for classroom use, as well as digital access to thousands of archival documents that teachers can incorporate into their lessons.
Teachers can also find curated digital collections on different topics—from world wars to the history of fashion trends—through the museum’s online “learning lab.”
“It’s invaluable, especially where I live,” said Tonja Hansen, a middle and high school social studies teacher in rural South Dakota.
Hansen mostly uses the Smithsonian’s primary source documents related to early American history and the Revolutionary Era. “My students would not have the opportunity to read, see, analyze any of these documents if it were not for the Smithsonian making them available,” she said.
The White House’s report focuses on one slice of the museum’s educational materials: a collection called “Becoming US,” includes lessons and instructional resources aimed at teaching the history of immigration and migration in the United States.
Launched in 2019, the program aims to cover these topics in “a more accurate and inclusive way,” according to the Smithsonian’s website.
Key concepts outlined in the teaching guide include that there is “no single American culture, language, or narrative,” that migrant communities have both been citizens and been denied citizenship, and that “xenophobia, forced migration, and deportation have affected individuals’ participation in democracy.”
The White House report argues that this program, along with other accompanying resources, serve as advocacy “for millions of illegal aliens to be granted U.S. citizenship and voting rights.”
The museum has “denigrated and displaced whites, males, Christians, and Americans in educational materials and programming,” the report claims, citing several statements from museum leadership: that history education requires teaching multiple, diverse perspectives, or that schools should work to close the “empathy gap”—the difficulty people can feel in relating to someone who doesn’t look like them.
Museum exhibits aimed at youth that discuss gender-based oppression and recognize the existence of transgender children are also criticized.
Could the report offer a ‘teachable moment’?
Hansen, the South Dakota teacher, said the examples in the report seemed “cherry picked.”
She disagreed with claims made in the report that the Smithsonian downplayed the founding era and figures like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
“All I could think about is, did these people actually visit the Smithsonians, and take it all in?” she said.
She went to the American history museum earlier this summer, she said. “I was awed seeing Thomas Jefferson’s writing desk, and George Washington’s signature, and a section of the flag that was at Fort McHenry. Anyone who didn’t come away from that museum awed at our history came in with an agenda.”
But it’s important for students to learn about other stories, too, she said—like how immigrants have contributed to, and been excluded from, American civic life. The goal isn’t to make students feel that the country is irredeemable, as the report argues, she said.
“It deepens their understanding of what it means to be an American. We should always be striving to meet those goals that were set out in the Preamble,” Hansen said, referencing the opening lines to the Constitution that state the intention to “form a more perfect union.”
All history curriculum comes with its own perspective, said Zimmerman, the University of Pennsylvania professor. What events are emphasized or downplayed, whose voices are central, what questions are asked of students, all contribute to shaping a narrative.
That’s true of the Smithsonian’s “Becoming US” curriculum too, he said. One of the program’s stated goals is to tell a more inclusive history of immigration. But instead of engaging with that perspective, the White House’s report “simply dismisses it,” he said.
In insisting that the museum emphasize American freedom to the exclusion of other stories, Zimmerman said, “the Trump administration is engaging in its own act of unfreedom.”
The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If teachers wanted to probe some of these ideas, they could present students with both Becoming US and the White House report, Zimmerman said, asking what arguments they’re making and why.
“This is a teachable moment in my mind,” he said.
