Editorial: Trump v. Smithson
By • September 9, 2025 0 459
A pitched battle between ideology and science took place 100 years ago.
The town of Dayton, with a population of 2,000 or so in 1925, hosted a court case brought by the State of Tennessee. The defendant was a 24-year-old high school teacher named John Thomas Scopes. His crime? The teaching of human evolution.
Scopes’s side was argued by celebrated lawyer Clarence Darrow, hired by the ACLU; Tennessee’s advocate was three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Tart-penned skeptic H. L. Mencken (whose 145th birthday is Friday) described the scene on July 11 in a Baltimore Evening Sun column:
“The selection of a jury to try Scopes, which went on all yesterday afternoon in the atmosphere of a blast furnace, showed to what extreme lengths the salvation of the local primates has been pushed. It was obvious after a few rounds that the jury would be unanimously hot for Genesis.”
Though Scopes was fined $100, the landmark case put a temporary damper on religious fundamentalism in the U.S. But the issue remains divisive: 17 states currently mandate the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.
Fundamentalism is apparently on the rise, energized by President Trump and the Project 2025 backers who advise him. In a blow to the separation of church and state, starting this month, Texas public school classrooms are required to display the Ten Commandments.
Which brings us to the Trump administration’s attacks on the Smithsonian Institution, a campaign that seems to share the politically useful reactionary stance of Tennessee’s anti-evolution Butler Act.
The May 20 executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” begins: “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”
An Aug. 12 letter notified Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III that the White House “will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions.” A list of objectionable works and exhibits was released on Aug. 21. The Smithsonian has responded that its own review is underway.
Established in 1846 after Congress accepted a bequest from British chemist and mineralogist James Smithson, the Smithsonian is an independent trust. It doesn’t answer to the executive branch. However, about 70 percent of its annual budget of over $1 billion is a federal appropriation.
Whether this pressure by the Trump administration will result in a stand-off or in capitulation remains to be seen. The strategy is similar to that faced by federal agencies and presumably independent law firms and universities (not to mention trading-partner nations).
Modern museums do not have prescribed curricula; their exhibitions aren’t textbooks. They aim not to teach in the formal sense but to, for instance: “explore the evolution of the American identity” (National Museum of American History), provide “a national platform for the art and artists of our time” (Hirshhorn Museum) and “help us understand who we are and remind us of what we can aspire to be” (National Portrait Gallery).
Here’s the mission of another Smithsonian museum: “The National Museum of African American History and Culture captures and shares the unvarnished truth of African American history and culture. We connect stories, scholarship, art and artifacts from the past and present to illuminate the contributions, struggles and triumphs that have shaped our nation. We forge new and compelling avenues for audiences to experience the arc of living history.”
Does this sound “out of control” (Trump’s words) to you?
We feel strongly that decisions about the Smithsonian’s holdings and their display and interpretation should remain exclusively in the hands of professionally trained curators and support staff. Anything less would be a betrayal of Smithson, Scopes and the millions who treasure the Smithsonian as one of the world’s greatest cultural assets.
