First Black Smithsonian Head Retires Amid Fight With Trump

The Smithsonian's chief official, Lonnie G. Bunch III, will retire by the end of the year. The 73-year-old historian said Tuesday that his decision to step down was not tied to the various pressures stemming from the Trump administration, which has spent the last year and a half strong-arming Smithsonian officials into revising portions of U.S. history. Bunch founded the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and became the Smithsonian's first Black leader in 2019, overseeing 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education units and centers. Over the course of his career, Bunch spent 38 years working for the institution, advancing public education. "I have spent nearly half of my life working at and being part of the Smithsonian family, and what a privilege it has been," Bunch wrote in a statement. "There is no place like the Smithsonian—it has been one of the great loves of my life, and I am extraordinarily proud of what we have accomplished together. I leave with pride and sadness, gratitude and joy, and with enormous confidence in the people who will carry this remarkable institution forward." Bunch's exit will nonetheless catapult the institution into another era of tumult and change, at a time when federal forces have already placed dramatic emphasis on the organization's restructuring. Last summer, the White House sparked alarm amongst Smithsonian staffers after officials laid out detailed plans to eliminate exhibits that they determined represented "improper ideology." The memo challenged the application of educational lenses on race, gender, and oppression in U.S. history, and accused the Smithsonian directly of advancing a "divisive, race-centered ideology." The administration's critiques were eugenics-adjacent, torching a specific Smithsonian exhibit for accurately describing race as something that is "not a biological reality but a social construct." The White House further flamed the institution for emphasizing that "race is a human invention." Failure to correct these wrongs would turn the faucet off on funding for the world's largest educational institution, effectively crippling the Smithsonian and nixing two-thirds of the organization's revenue. Smithsonian staffers described the situation as an "impossible position," arguing that the Trump administration had ordered them to be non-partisan while forcing them to follow an extraordinarily partisan directive. Around the same time, the Smithsonian removed Donald Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under direct pressure from the White House. The "American Presidency" wing's revised signage explained that "only three presidents have seriously faced removal" over the course of American history. The change was the result of a White House-initiated content review in the wake of an art director's ousting. Much of the institution's compliance was a part of a broader effort to save Bunch's job, as staffers have described him as "loved" and "respected." The pressure has not let up. In June, Trump signed an executive order offering his administration officials unprecedented control over the independent organization's operations in an effort to "restore trust." The executive order cited a report by the president's Domestic Policy Council that claimed the Smithsonian "does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a 'prime tool' to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society."