The shake-up at the Smithsonian Institution is accelerating — and it is worth understanding the full picture of what is happening and why it matters. As we reported yesterday, Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian’s secretary since 2019, has announced his departure by year’s end amid an escalating clash with the Trump Administration. His departure, though, is far from the only action brewing.
In May, President Trump fired Kim Sajet (SAY-et), director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, calling her a highly partisan person and a strong supporter of DEI who was totally inappropriate for her position. Sajet, an Obama appointee, initially appeared to defy the firing — showing up at her desk daily in what observers described as a deliberate message that the president does not control Smithsonian personnel. The Smithsonian Board of Regents rallied behind her, issuing a statement affirming their sole authority over personnel decisions. Then, within days, Sajet quietly resigned anyway — announcing it was in the interests of the institution. The portrait gallery director of the National Portrait Gallery has also since stepped down.
And the Trump administration is not simply making personnel changes. They are pursuing a genuine reckoning with what taxpayer-funded cultural institutions have been doing with a billion dollars a year in federal money. The July 4th White House report “Saving America’s Story” documented the Smithsonian’s systematic erasure of the founding era, its embrace of the 1619 Project’s revisionist framework, its DEI programming that labels objectivity as white supremacy culture, and its replacement of American heritage exhibits with gender ideology content and activist partnerships.
These museums have not just “drifted slightly left.” They have been deliberately remaking our national history into an instrument of an ideological agenda — all on the public dime.
The Board of Regents, which includes Vice President JD Vance and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, has now seen three of its top personnel depart under pressure in a matter of months. The administration’s message is clear: the Smithsonian belongs to the American people — not to the leftist ideologues who captured it.
Getting it back will take more than resignations. It will take a complete reimagining of leadership, mission, and content. But these departures are a good and necessary start.
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