LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The Trump administration is ordering warning signs outside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. President Trump has been attacking the museum, claiming it does not accurately depict the nation's history. NPR's Janet Woojeong Lee reports that this is not sitting well with many historians.
JANET WOOJEONG LEE, BYLINE: The executive order comes weeks after the administration's report saying that the Smithsonian was engaging in anti-white rhetoric and transgender activism. The Trump administration also called out the institution for being insufficiently patriotic. Reaction to the president's executive order was swift.
BETH ENGLISH: The White House seeks to impose a narrow, singular celebratory narrative of American greatness.
WOOJEONG LEE: That's Beth English, the executive director of the Organization of American Historians.
ENGLISH: Crucially, that narrative would erase the conflict, the struggle, the diversity, the complexity that have always defined the American experience.
WOOJEONG LEE: She says these warning signs, which are to be posted by the National Park Service outside the museum, are a targeted attack to break the public's trust of the Smithsonian and its historians.
MIKE GONZALEZ: Signage is kind of clever.
WOOJEONG LEE: Mike Gonzalez is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He appeared before a House subcommittee last week criticizing the Smithsonian leadership. He says he's delighted to see the museum will be able to correct what he says are its errors.
GONZALEZ: It's not really a trigger warning but it's a way to say, hey, what you are going to see, it's not an objective representation of your own history.
WOOJEONG LEE: NPR reached out to the Smithsonian and the National Park Service. Neither responded to requests for comment before air.
Janet Woojeong Lee, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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