LDF Urges Congress to Protect the Integrity of the Smithsonian and Preserve the Truthful Telling of American History

Read a PDF of our statement here.

Today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) submitted a letter to several Congress members urging Congress to protect the Smithsonian Institution's autonomy and ensure that its museums, exhibits, educational programming and scholarly work can continue to present an accurate and truthful account of American history that includes discussions of race as it pertains to Black people and culture.

The letter comes amid escalating efforts to censor and suppress certain information about race and gender which jeopardize the Smithsonian's core mission: "To increase and diffuse knowledge." But attempts to silence the Smithsonian and suppress the discussion of topics that the administration disfavors or finds unpleasant threaten not only the integrity of the Smithsonian's work, but the public's ability to understand the full breadth and history of the United States, including the contributions, experiences, struggles and achievements of Black people in America.

In the letter, LDF Director of Strategic Initiatives Jin Hee Lee emphasizes the vital role the Smithsonian plays in preserving and sharing accurate information about American history. Lee urges Congress to stop the administration's efforts to politicize the work of the Smithsonian and to affirm the Smithsonian's independence.

"It is imperative for Congress to ensure that the Smithsonian remains steadfast in its purpose to provide information 'with accuracy and integrity' so that people in America can receive all available information and decide for themselves the complex and controversial issues of the day. It is, therefore, a disservice to them for President Trump or any governmental official to selectively decide what information should or should not be shared. And it is especially harmful to the people who have suffered the most-from discrimination, marginalization, and erasure-to have their stories and their perspectives excluded from our American narrative," the letter reads in part.

The letter is in response to the July 21 and 22 hearings respectively before the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency entitled "Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian's Efforts to Reshape the Past," and before the Committee on House Administration entitled "Oversight and the Smithsonian: Radical Revisionism at the National Museum of American History."

Read the full letter.

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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation's first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF's archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.