Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is urging the Supreme Court docket’s Chief Justice John Roberts to reject an government order from President Trump that referred to as to revive “truth and sanity” to the Smithsonian Establishment.
“It is imperative that you, along with your fellow Regents, continue the storied legacy of the Smithsonian that tells the American story honestly and completely,” Jeffries wrote in a letter to Roberts on Friday. “President Trump’s proclamation, which seeks to whitewash our history, is cowardly and unpatriotic. It must fail.”
Roberts by statute sits on the Smithsonian Establishment’s Board of Regents and serves as Chancellor of the Smithsonian.
“The Smithsonian attracts tens of millions of visitors a year and works with the finest subject matter experts in virtually every field. The fact that the Proclamation prominently singles out the National Museum of African American History and Culture speaks volumes about Donald Trump’s actual motivation,” Jeffries wrote to Roberts. “To be clear: Black history is American history. It cannot and will not be erased.”
Trump’s March government order alleges the Smithsonian Establishment “has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” Amongst different examples, it claims an exhibit on the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition asserts “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are elements of “white culture.”
It directed Vice President Vance, who sits on the Smithsonian board together with Roberts, to steer efforts to eradicate content material from Smithsonian museums that don’t align with the administration’s imaginative and prescient to “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.”
Jeffries in contrast the order to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
“History is replete with dangerous efforts to manipulate cultural and historical narratives in order to consolidate power, including during twentieth-century regimes like those in the Soviet Union and 1930s Germany,” Jeffries wrote. “That is not America. I strongly urge you to reject the Proclamation targeting the Smithsonian and to uphold the 175-year tradition that has made the Institution the preeminent museum, educational and cultural system in the world.”
The subsequent Smithsonian board assembly is scheduled for June 9.
