After weeks of speculation about how the Smithsonian Institution would respond to the Trump administration’s executive order calling for a review of the museum network’s programming, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has finally weighed in.
In a letter to staff on Wednesday, Bunch said the institution has convened a team to review materials to be handed over to the White House. He stressed, however, that the Smithsonian remains independent.
“I take my responsibility to steward the institution on behalf of the American people very seriously,” Bunch wrote, according to the New York Times. “Our independence is paramount.”
Bunch said he had also responded to the White House in another letter on Tuesday, stating that the Smithsonian would conduct its own review to ensure programming and content is “nonpartisan and factual.”
He wrote, “I am assembling a small internal team to advise me and the senior team about what we can provide and on what timeline,” adding that the institution would brief the Trump administration on its findings.
The White House has yet to respond to Bunch’s most recent letter.
Last week, Bunch had lunch with President Donald Trump after the White House released a bullet-pointed list of artworks in the Smithsonian’s museums that it appeared to denounce. A White House spokesperson described the meeting as “productive and cordial.”
The list was the latest move in a pressure campaign waged by the administration since Trump took office in January. In a March executive order, the White House claimed the Smithsonian had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” An earlier order targeted the institution and other federal entities to end DEI initiatives, though the Smithsonian had already closed its DEI office in January.
In May, Trump claimed to have fired National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet over her support for DEI. While Sajet and the museum initially rejected the firing—saying Trump had no jurisdiction—Sajet later resigned.
Though the Smithsonian receives about two-thirds of its $1 billion annual budget from the federal government, it is not a federal entity. The museum consortium is overseen by a Board of Regents, as stipulated by Congress upon its founding in 1846. The current board includes the vice president, the chief justice of the United States, six members of Congress, and nine citizen regents.
