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A legal expert is calling for a leadership overhaul at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), arguing the museum has embraced a negative, “self-loathing” portrayal of the nation’s past.
“I think this is part of a broader effort by radicals on the left to redefine the history of the United States and reframe it in an oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative,” Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., told Digital.
“Instead of looking at American history chronologically with all the triumphs and tragedies, including slavery, and then the things that our country did to eradicate the vestiges of slavery, and then passing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts and getting rid of various other laws that were discriminatory in practice or in spirit. They take a very pro-reparations, ‘we’re a bad country,’ oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative.”
The comments come after a July 2026 White House report accused the Smithsonian of advancing DEI and left-wing agendas, prompting a pair of heated congressional hearings that put National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig under the national spotlight.
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Legal expert Cully Stimson spoke to Digital about Smithsonian leadership and what he called “bile” in its American history exhibits. ( Digital ; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Lawmakers accused museum leaders of allowing political activism to seep into exhibits and influence how history is presented, while Hartig maintained that the museum is nonpartisan and “does not take sides in America’s political debates.”
Stimson said the hearings are exposing “bile that they’re trying to pass off as history,” saying “sunlight’s a good disinfectant.”
“If the head of the Smithsonian had any shame whatsoever, she would have resigned in disgrace already and she doesn’t have any shame because she’s perfectly happy with what she’s done,” Stimson said. “She’s just the pointy end of the radical spear that’s out there trying to force this thing down the throats of Americans.”
Stimson said Hartig should have been fired “the minute after the hearing” for what he called “smug and self-righteous” behavior during her testimony and for failing to take accountability.
“Her little writing the question down and her smugness was really evincing of what she really thinks of the American people and congressional oversight,” he said.
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National Museum of American History Director Dr. Anthea Hartig is sworn in during an Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency hearing on Capitol Hill on July 21, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Looking back to America’s 250th anniversary celebrations in July, when hundreds of thousands of people came to D.C. to celebrate the milestone, Stimson said families and children were instead greeted with “all sorts of disgusting things, bondage, and all sorts of other nasty things” at the museum.
Some of the controversial exhibits highlighted in the report and hearings featured sexually explicit material, focused on race, gender and sexuality, and portrayed the Founding Fathers through their ties to slavery rather than their roles in building America.
“There should be an entire section dedicated toward the Founding Fathers and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the Reconstruction Amendments and all the things that happened, the Civil War, but no,” he said.
Stimson said America has gone through many ups and downs “to get beyond the ugly parts of our history,” giving Americans reason to celebrate the country today.
“We should not have a museum dedicated to flagellation and self-loathing,” he said. “That is not how you celebrate your country.”
Many Democrats have also accused Republicans of trying to “whitewash” history, a claim Stimson rejected, saying that celebrating America does not mean ignoring the darker parts of its past.
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“Celebrating doesn’t mean whitewashing history,” he said. “Every civilization throughout mankind has had slavery. That doesn’t make it right, it makes it reality.”
But Stimson said this approach to teaching history goes further than the museums and that the concern is “something you need to be aware of.”
“You see this in higher ed, you see this unfortunately in high school and even below in lower schools, and unfortunately at our premier national museums, including the American History Museum,” he said.
Stimson said people should take away the same lessons that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when parents isolated at home got a firsthand look at what their children were being taught.
“That’s why you saw more and more homeschoolers, more and more people in the school choice movement just explode across the country,” he said.
He added “parents are the first educators of their children” and it’s up to them “to present American history” the right way.
A complete reset could be what the museum needs, according to Stimson.
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“That’s all it is,” he said. “It’s bile. It needs to be ripped out, root and branch, and redone.”
Digital reached out to the Smithsonian for comment but did not receive a response before publication.
